I had a moment of panic when I woke up, forgetting for a moment where I was. I panicked, feeling like I had been buried alive in a coffin, before my hand touched the steel pole next to me on the pile of coats. I recoiled from the sudden pain and all of the previous night’s events came rushing back to me, leaving me in stunned silence on the floor.
I thought back over the previous day and realized this was the first time I had slept that well from as far back as I can remember. I had no nightmares, didn’t wake up multiple times throughout the night screaming and in pain, and there were no faceless trying to coerce me into listening to their stories. I stretched as far apart as I could in the small closet and sat up noticing that there was no pounding on the outside of the door anymore.
I listened carefully, trying to pick out any sound of movement or breathing on the other side of the door. It was just too quiet and this worried me greatly. I could hear birds chirping outside and see the light of the new day under the door. Seeing the sunlight through the crack at the bottom of the door I sat back and pondered my plan from the night before. The way I saw it was that the infected either got tired of beating on the door and left to find easier prey or the sunlight I was seeing under the door might be enough that it stopped him in his tracks.
I couldn’t be sure right now unfortunately. I reached up and pulled the string for the light, half expecting nothing to happen, but it came back on and I could see nothing had changed inside the small closet. I decided there was no time to waste so I put on the leather gloves I had found the night before, picked up the steel bar, and deciding to act like the monster was still somewhere in the house I unlocked the door and hit it like a linebacker with the Superbowl on the line. It swung open fast and hard, encountering no resistance as I barreled through the door and slammed into the wall on the other side of the hall. I quickly recovered, steel rod in hand, and spun in place looking around.
The front door was still closed from where I had closed and locked in the night before. Looking around I didn’t see any sign of the infected from the night before. I had made a lot of noise when I came rushing out of the closet but nothing seemed to be reacting to it. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor for the moment I unlocked the front door. Having quietly opened it I stuck my head out to make sure there were no immediate dangers. Seeing no other infected I stepped out leaving the door open behind me.
I strode forward, quickly, into the street looking around at all of the destruction, car crashes, and bodies strewn about. There was blood smeared on fences, streets, sidewalks, cars, windows, houses, and just anywhere you could imagine a human having once walked. I stood there transfixed by the scene around me seeing all this death and destruction. I didn’t see anything moving however, so that was either a very good sign or a very bad one. I walked towards where I had crashed my truck and stopped in my tracks. The tree that had jumped out in front of me was still there but my fucking truck was gone.
“Damn it!” I said quietly to myself.
I knew I had taken a pretty hard knock to my face when I hit the tree and must have left my keys in it. I was so busy stomping out the infected that had tried to grab me from behind that I didn’t even check to see if it was still running. I had been reacting purely on instinct after getting my bell rung crashing. I wondered if someone who wasn’t an infected had taken it or if a survivor had seen what happened and figured I was already dead so the truck was fair game. Another, far more terrifying though came to mind, what if the infected somehow knew how to drive.
I heard Fats belch and chuckle as he appeared behind me walking up the street as he said “Who gives a shit fucko, the damn thing is gone now and you need to get moving. If you are still out here when it gets dark… you are going to get raped like new pretty boy meat in prison.”
He chuckled again and vanished. I shrugged irritably, I knew he was right but that was my damn truck. I looked around, one last time, and then tried to think about how I would proceed from here. I didn’t know how to hotwire a car so theft was very unlikely. I didn’t know anyone in town close enough to where I was in order to try and borrow theirs. I had a sudden thought but quickly discounted it as the nearest dealership where I might be able to steal a vehicle was about 40 minutes away. I knew it was time for the old shoe leather express to carry me home.
Resigned to having to walk I turned towards the street that would take me downtown into my small country town and started walking. The steel bar was too heavy to carry in a ready to swing stance, so I had it draped over one shoulder like some cartoon thug. I felt like a thug too covered in scars, wearing dirty clothes and leather gloves, walking down the middle of the street with a six foot piece of steel draped over a shoulder. If it weren’t for the all the destruction around me, I would have felt pretty badass as well. I wasn’t sure how many other survivors there were but to be wandering around as the only living person I knew of through all this had me feeling like I owned the damn place.
Walking down the street, I kept my eyes peeled for anything to be concerned about and was checking the cars I passed by looking for keys or anything useful. Normally I would never think of taking stuff out of someone else’s car but, considering the state of my small town, if it was still there the original owner probably wasn’t coming back for it.
“You should check the trunks too, that’s where all the best stuff gets hidden, like weapons or bodies.” Killer suddenly inserted into my stream of thoughts with a dry raspy laugh of amusement.
I nodded internally to him and started popping trunks open as well. I didn’t find as much as I would have liked but I did find a back pack full of books. The backpack wasn’t anything special but it was better than trying to carry anything I did find by hand so I quickly dumped the books out and slung it over my back. I was slowly making my way downtown to the library and thinking that it was pretty unlikely that I would find Ginny there but that I needed to check, just in case. The old library would be one of my stops if I had needed a place to barricade and hole up quick inside town when all this needed to go down.
At one time, in the 1800s when the town was founded, the library had started off as a stone defensible building in case the town was attacked. The lowest window on it was a good ten feet off the ground and it had a solid eight inch thick wooden door for the front and back entrances. It also had a full basement that had been converted into a nuclear attack shelter by the local government in the 50s or 60s. I had been down there once when Ginny was curious about some of the gear stored there. It was funny because while I might not remember much from before my “accident” I could easily tell her what everything down there was, how it worked, and if it was still good. They also had a natural spring well down there, but I wasn’t sure about a food supply. No weapons either so while I considered trying to use it as a base in town while I figured out what was going on I quickly dismissed it as folly.
I wanted to find Ginny but of the places I knew that I could check there weren’t enough that I would need to stay in town for long. I made it to Main Street, after about a 20 minute walk, and still hadn’t seen a living soul. Looking up the street towards the dead end cul-de-sac that lead to the library along with some other civic buildings I saw a couple of the naked infected standing still in the middle of the road. They hadn’t noticed me yet and were just standing there, staring at the police station.
“Sir, remember how those tangos stared you down when they hit the sunlight yesterday at the gas station?” The Soldier suddenly asked in my ear. I nodded quietly and mentally waved a hand at him to continue as I settled down behind a car to hide and observe for a bit.
“Well sir, they are awfully interested in something that isn’t you. Could be something new we haven’t seen them do, more likely to be another living human. I suggest taking them out while they are frozen in place. Best case scenario a friendly human sees and gives us some intel, mid case scenario they avoid us, worst case scenario that many less tangos you have to dodge if you get stuck here after dark again sir.” The Soldier finished up.
Killer giggled and started singing a song about killing which I took as agreement that we should kill the infected before moving on. I nodded in agreement and directed a mental thank you to them in my head as they went quiet again, leaving me to concentrate on the task at hand. I checked the other way up the street but it was empty of any threat that I could see, just more of the destruction that I was quickly becoming to feel at home in. I hefted my pipe off my shoulder into a ready to swing stance and moved quietly around the back of the car I was crouched behind. I moved in a low crouch to the other side of the street behind the monsters as quietly as I could to avoid attention. I was PRETTY sure they weren’t going to move, but I wanted to catch them by surprise if I could just in case.
Stepping quickly I got within striking range of the first of the four in the small group. I hadn’t noticed how small they were when I was moving up on them, just the normal nudity and blood covered wounds but as I closed in from behind I realized they were children. These four were infected kids. I quietly took a step back, indecision running through my head. I had been ok dealing with adult infected but it had totally slipped my mind that if the adult humans could be infected what about the kids?
“What’s the issue? They are only smaller humans, still prey for killing! KILL THEM!” Killer hissed in my ear in anger.
I rounded faster than I think I have ever moved and stared right into where his face should have been, my sadness gone and replaced with an anger so hot it was rolling off me in waves of white fire. Killer shrank back from me quickly in the face of such a barrage of intense feeling directed at him.
“Never children. We don’t EVER kill kids. Don’t even bring it up again or so help me I will find a way to kill any faceless who so much as looks like he might bring it up again. Are we clear?” I stated slowly, quietly in a low eerily calm voice to Killer and all the rest as well.
I knew they were listening and I was done with their shit. I wasn’t trapped in reality with them, they were trapped in my head with ME and I was calling all the shots. Killer nodded while raising his hands in an open gesture of “don’t murder me please” placation before disappearing. I stood there seething for a minute and then turned trying to figure out what to do about the kids. I saw The Soldier out of the corner of my eye looking directly at me. That was new, as usually he was standing stiffly at attention somewhere.
I turned and looked directly at him and asked “What do you think I should do about this?”
He stared at me and shook his head. He didn’t need to say it, he was a figment of my imagination and even though I had JUST said no kids, never kids, these weren’t really kids anymore, they were infected and judging by the blood running down their faces had become killers as well. I started to wonder what favors I was doing these things if I didn’t put them down now and just how many other people they might hurt if I didn’t take this chance to put them down.
I turned my head again and asked softly. “They aren’t kids anymore are they? I mean kids wouldn’t be standing naked in a road covered in wounds and blood right? Does that make it better than if I killed a normal adult human?”
The Soldier reached out and put a hand on my shoulder and simply said “Some actions we have to carry through with, even when they hurt, even when they go against everything we thought was right and true, because in this reality, the kindest thing you can do is put them down quickly and show them the respect due a fallen comrade.”
I nodded as I roughly wiped away the moisture in my eyes and gripped my pipe tightly. I moved back into position and with four hard swings, broke each of their tiny skulls. I tried to do it as quickly as I could so if they did still feel pain it was over too fast for them to understand. It was also over too quickly for them to turn and stare at me. After they were dead I dropped my pipe and sank to the ground sobbing like I never remember having done. I thought I was dealing with the whole “going to the library and now the world has turned into a horror movie” thing experiencing pretty well up until now but God damn this hurt.
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I was already broken in a world full of humans that always seemed to be so alien to me. Now I was broken in a world full of infected and the things I once knew as being stable, right and wrong, were just gone out the fucking window like flipping a switch to the off position. I sat there crying so hard that I didn’t really hear or at least process that someone was calling my name. Large body wracking sobs shook my frame as tears and snot ran down my face and I knew I looked like some kind of cartoon baby crying their eyes out. I was still adrift in the sea of emotions when I felt a hand touch my shoulder.
Assuming it was one of the faceless I shook it off and told them all to leave me alone. I was quickly brought to realize the error of my ways when a huge slap caught me across the face rocking me backwards. Recoiling in shock and pain I looked up to see Ginny standing there with a really worried look on her face. I just sat there starting at her when I realized her lips were moving and tuned back into what my ears were trying to tell me
“Have you been bitten TK?! God damn it TK snap out of it! I am not one of the voices in your head!” she was quietly but insistently saying to me as she cocked her hand back for another huge slap.
I quickly held my hands up and responded “No I haven’t been bitten, not that they haven’t been trying since last night. “
She looked relieved dropping her hand and picking up a piece of iron rebar covered with dried blood. I noticed she was looking a little disheveled, thinner around her cheeks, huge dark bags under her eyes, and that she was nervous as a mouse in a glass house full of cats. She kept looking over her shoulder and around at everything. Before I knew what I was really doing I reached up and dragged her into a massive hug. I really did dwarf her small height and frame but I was just so happy to see someone I like alive! I was starting to wonder if I might be all that’s left. I must have caught her completely by surprise because I felt her stiffen up and then go limp as she realized I was just saying hello to a friend. Then she started crying, like I had been, and just letting it all come out.
“What a bunch of hippie, kumbaya, drum circle pounding, hair braiding, and Nancy boy loving bullshit!” I heard Fats say in my ear.
I ignored him of course. Fuck Fats. I have my friend back. After a few minutes of this Ginny quickly pulled herself together and stepped back a bit while looking around, much more steady than she had been a few minutes ago.
“What happened here Ginny? I came into town for books last night and damn near got munched on. I had to hole up in a closet in some random house after curb stomping some naked guy trying to take a bite out of me.” I asked quietly.
She shook her head, looking around she quietly said “Not here TK, these little infected cornered me in there last night and had me trapped inside. I’m not sure how you managed to sneak up on them and take them all out like that but we need to get back to the library. I have some other survivors there and now we have some real weapons.”
She showed me a couple of duffle bags that I hadn’t noticed sitting on the ground. She must have brought them out when she came to check on me. Smart girl I thought, looking over the contents of the overfilled bags. Pump shotguns, 9mm and .45 pistols, a couple of .308 bolt action rifles with scopes, and about a dozen AR-15s. She even had magazines and ammo for all of them. I nodded my head at her in understanding, reached down and picked up two of the larger bags will all the ammo and larger rifles. She looked at me in surprise, smiled tightly and grabbed the smaller bag with pistols. She started to crouch and move around the cars and I asked
“Why are you sneaking? It’s daylight out.”
She looked back at me like I as stupid and pointed at the kid monsters. I didn’t dare risk another look at them as I shook my head and explained
“They don’t seem to like daylight, it freezes them stiff like water outside in the winter. They stare at you pretty fierce but they won’t move. I have seen them do it a couple times now. They will move in shadows and stuff but direct sun stops them dead Ginny.”
She looked a little disbelieving but stood up hesitantly and just said “I guess that’s why I am still alive then. I noticed there weren’t any around the library before dawn and was making my way down the street when these little bastards saw me.” She spat on the ground and continued “They almost cornered me in the alley behind the police station but I managed to shimmy up the rain gutter drain pipe to the roof and climbed in through the window vents they have.”
She started walking, still keeping a close eye on our surroundings, as I followed along listening with the two bags over one shoulder steel pipe over the other. We moved to the center of the road and she continued
“I knew where the Sheriff kept his spare keys to the armory from one night when he was drunk and hitting on me at the bar. He tried to impress me by sharing how big his gun collection was. As if a gun collection was enough to get into MY pants, what an idiot. I grabbed everything they had left and don’t think I missed much. When I was trying to head back to the library out the front door I got to the street right before the sun rose and those little infected came around the side of the building looking for me. I dropped the bags and lured them around the edge of the cars so I could circle back inside and they stopped right at the bags. I didn’t know the sunlight stopped them so I assumed they were guarding them and waiting for me to make my move inside.”
We kept watch and kept walking, no threats in sight. I asked her “How many others are at the library?”
The grimace she gave me before answering was telling “Just a couple of kids who were at the libraries weekly story time, some out of town college frat boy, and the head librarian.” She finished with a sour look. I nodded in understanding. No one liked Rina, the head of the library. She was one of those women who like to attend church, not because she got anything out of it or really seemed to believe in their positive messages, she just liked to gossip about everyone and twist the words of her chosen holy book in such a way as to condemn anyone she didn’t like and make their lives hell.
I had a run in with her the very first day we met and it had set the tone of our entire relationship from then on. My old man had brought me to the library and was showing me where all my favorite sections were, Rina was coming out of a back room as I passed, and when she turned around she did this huge fake gasp, put the back of her hand to her head like some actress in an old movie about to faint, and sat down in her chair. I had scowled at her, I knew what I looked like but she had seen me before on the street and made some snide side handed comments to her little coven of fellow witches… I mean friends.
I had kept walking, my Dad pushing my from behind to get me away from her, when she shouted at my retreating form “You must be rude as a side effect of suffering God’s wrath.”
I had stopped dead in my tracks and turned around to glare at her. There were only a few feet separating us and I think she had realized she went too far as she shrank back into the little wooden bench she was sitting on.
I asked in a low voice “God’s wrath?” not really thinking that she would be stupid enough to answer I stared her down and started to turn away again.
But she stupidly answered in a low voice “God made you a monster on the outside to match the monster you are inside.”
I spun back and took a step forward, her face draining of color she jumped to her feet and took off like a bat out of hell as my old man threw his arms around me holding me back so that I couldn’t pursue her. She never said anything quite so stupid to me again, to my face anyways, but she always made sure to make my life as miserable as she could without risking life and limb again. We made it to the end of the dead end avenue reaching the library.
“Ginny,” I quietly said “why were you out here finding weapons by yourself?”
Ginny looked down at her feet for a minute and said “If you promise to let me handle it I will tell you why TK. I know you and I need you to let ME deal with this. OK?”
I thought about this and figured that Rina must be the reason. I shook my head in a negative, set the bags down, looked Ginny in the face and said
“No Ginny, I will not promise that. I trust you, but not Rina, and I am not going in to give that crazy manipulative bitch a bunch of guns. If you want to, I understand, but I will just go home. You are welcome to come with me, you know how remote my cabin is. Hell you can even bring the others, except for Rina. I have food, water, shelter, and we can stay far away from these infected and figure out what to do next.”
I could see Ginny working this over in her head, feeling suddenly hungry and thirsty I sat down on the hood of a car parked in the street to wait for a response. She looked at me, nodding, and opened the bags of weaponry we had carried. She started sorting through the stuff and broke it down into two bags, putting some of the overflow on the hood of the car I was sitting in. I just watched and waited for her response.
Ginny finished sorting and stated “Give me your backpack TK.” I quickly unslung it and handed it to her as she loaded a couple of pistols with magazines and box after box of ammunition into it. She handed the pack back to me and I re-slung it, still waiting for a response. She looked me dead in the eyes and before I knew what was happening she reached up, her slim warm hand running over the scars on my neck and the back of my head, she pulled me down towards her and kissed me. Her lips were warm, soft, and parted as her tongue slipped through into mine. I froze for a moment and wrapped her into a hug as the kiss ended as quickly as it had started.
Burying her face into my shoulder her lips brushed my ear as she whispered “You are a good man TK, never let anyone tell you different. Wait here, I will drop off this bag of guns and see if the kids want to come with me. Why don’t you see if you can find a ride for us at the police station? I saw a bunch of keys on a board by their back door leading into their impound lot.”
I loosened my hug and she leaned back looking up into my icy blue eyes with her intelligent green eyes. My mind was blank. I just nodded in agreement. I would do anything for this woman and we both knew it. She stepped back as I saw the softness and emotion in her face harden into determination as she refocused on what she was going to do.
I simply asked “Are you going to be safe going in there alone or should I stay?”
She looked up at me with a silly little smirk and replied “I got this big guy. I don’t think there will be any real issues but be back here with a ride in 10 minutes if you can ok? I don’t want to hang around after this all goes down.”
I stood and nodded. While she watched I broke the driver side window of the car I was sitting on, reaching inside for the latch to pop the trunk, and put my pack and the duffel of guns we were keeping into the trunk closing it afterwards. She had kept a small pistol, a .380 from the look of the size of it, and put it into her jacket pocket showing no sign it was even there. She turned to me, stood on her tip toes and gave me another peck on the check with a smile that promised more than I could ever have hoped for, and she strode towards the front door of the library.
I knew that if I watched her leave I would follow so I quickly shouldered my length of pipe and strode back down the street to the police station. I didn’t see anything different on the street as I walked back so I quickly went in the front door that Ginny had left unlocked and slightly ajar. I carefully made my way through the station and saw some dead bodies here and there. Most were naked and had head damage of some kind, mostly gun shots, so not Ginny kills then I thought back to when she came outside with nothing but the length of rebar pipe she had carried.
I worked my way towards the back of the station, checking desks for spare ammo and anything useful. I found a couple spare pairs of handcuffs and keys, which I put into my cargo pockets. I passed a break room and looking in saw the vending machines had been left untouched. I finished clearing the building and hurried back. Taking my pipe I quickly smashed open the glass fronts of the drink and snack machines. Looking under the single sink I found some garbage bags, which I pocketed, and using one I took all the snacks and drinks left in the machine. Taking my bag of goodies I quickly found the board by the back door Ginny had mentioned.
I looked out the window into the fenced in area, looking for a vehicle worth taking and saw a pristine extended cab truck, looked like it might even be a diesel, with a full cap over the bed of the truck. I looked over the key board until I found the keys tagged with the license plate on the truck and stepped outside moving carefully to the truck, eyes scanning around me for potential dangers. Seeing nothing I quickly unlocked the truck and made sure it wasn’t hiding any infected waiting to attack me. Seeing nothing unusual I unlocked the cap over the bed of the truck and put my bag of vending machine finds inside closing it. I was turning over the logistics of having sudden guests at my homestead and realized I wouldn’t have enough beds for everyone. I had a sudden flash of thought, so I quickly started the truck, with no issues luckily, and pulled it back over towards the back door of the station backing it in to line up the bed of the truck with the back door.
I went back inside straight to the holding cells and quickly stripped the beds of their mattresses, quickly loading them into the truck. I found the small closet where they stored the linen and pillows for guests of the jail and looted that closet full of clean blankets, sheets, and pillows as well. I only had a small cabin with a small bed so the kids will need places to sleep when we get back I thought to myself. I had a small guest apartment in the loft of my barn already and imagined it wouldn’t take too much work to add on another room or two for them to share during the warmer month. I was actually SMILING to myself as I closed the back of the truck and started opening the sliding chain link fence gate to leave. I knew things were going too well when I heard something that stopped my heart for just a moment. I counted at least 7 shots and all of them were coming from the direction of the library. Ginny!