This chapter's songs (I couldn't pick between them):
"Blow Me Away" by Breaking Benjamin
"How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty
AN/ I now remember why I don't write in past tense. I SUCK AT IT. So if I accidentally switch the tenses up, I don't care. Deal with it. I'm sick of rewriting and editing the same things over and over again.
Recap: So when, halfway through the study session and about an hour after my dad left, a strange pounding came from the front door I was completely unprepared.
We were both siting at the low coffee table going over notes and the sound made us jump. My subconscious was screaming that there was something wrong, but I was still in fantasy world with Faye and completely forgot that I had been anticipating a zombie invasion for two weeks. I got up and went to the door, then looked through the peephole to see who it was. From a brief glimpse I saw a large, hairy and bloodstained man raise his arms. There was a sudden movement and I heard a cracking of wood, then the thick metal door smashed into my nose and I was flung back into the stairs behind me. I felt blood pooling in my nose immediately and I heard Faye scream, but I tried not to let either of those distract me because then the zombie, I knew what it was by then, lurched through the now open door. I scrambled up the stairs on my back, aiming a kick at its head as I did, and was able to get out of reach before it had a good hold on me.
For some reason the big picture sorted itself out in my mind right then. I remembered my plans which had been half-forgotten, the thirty pack of water, about how long the food in the cupboards would last, basically everything except the machete that would take about fifteen seconds for me to get. Instead, the first weapon I thought of was the large kitchen knife that was sitting in a slotted block of wood on the counter, which had a zombie between me and it. I picked myself up, clutching my now gushing nose, and yelled, "Faye! Stay away from the doors!"
About seven steps up the stairs, which was pretty much halfway, there was a big dictionary that my dad had set there so that I would remember to put it away in my upstairs study room. I waited until the Zed-head was about two steps up the stairs, uncomfortably close, to grab the book and throw it as hard as I could at its face. It fell back down the stairs and partway out the door. As it was trying to get back up I hurdled the banister of the stairs and ran through the kitchen, grabbing the knife in the process. It made a satisfying shhhinnng as it left the wooden block. I didn't take the time to look at it, long with a good bit of blade at the hilt that narrowed slowly to a point, because Faye was in view and I didn't want to scare her.
I should describe the apartment I was living in at the time, because you're probably lost with all of the directions. It was a two story apartment that was 20'x40' per floor. The entire building was long and straight, with several of these apartments end-to-end, and the outer walls were brick. The bottom floor was a living room, which had a window and the back door, that took up half of the space on that floor and the rest was a narrow kitchen and hallway that were parallel, sandwiching a tiny bathroom. The kitchen had a small window at the end, on the same wall as the front door. The stairs ran along the hallway and the thick banister that I had hopped over melded with the ceiling as the stairs rose. The upstairs consisted of 3 bedrooms, 1 full bathroom, a linen closet and a cubby space/study room that had a trapdoor to the attic. I had never been in the attic.
So as I'd moved into the living room to quickly check on Faye I knew that the zombie was going to be coming down the hallway at my right. I asked her if she was okay, sounding muffled because my nose was completely clogged with blood, and she gave me a quick nod, eyes locked on the large knife in my hand. So much for not scaring her, I thought. Then there had been a long, sickening moan and I turned to fully face to hallway. There was a slow shuffling coming down it and I got ready to make a lunge for the thing's head. But then I thought, What if Faye doesn't know about zombies? She is already scared, given the look she gave the knife. If I attack outright she might think I just killed a normal person
As I was thinking this it stepped into the room, arms up and moaning again. I yelled, "STOP!" but of course it didn't do anything. I held my ground and it swung a wild arm at me, but I jumped back and then lunged forward again, my left hand pushing it sideways while my right hand drove the first half of the blade straight into its eye. As soon as the knife was in I jumped back, barely missing another flail of its arms. As I moved away it raised its arms again, completely unfazed. I whispered a curse, then pushed both of its outstretched arms up with one hand, and I jabbed the knife with the palm of my other hand, pushing the blade deeper, then quickly twisting it. If it hadn't died from the final twist it would have had me pinned because I was well within reaching distance then, but it collapsed.
After waiting a second to make sure it was dead I pulled the knife free and wiped it on a clean part of the thing's tan khakis. I stood and looked back at Faye, holding my nose again because of the bleeding, and to my horror she looked like she wanted to bolt at the first opportunity. My only consolation was that she was looking at the dead thing on the floor, not at me, with that look. I knew there where things that needed to be done, but Faye was first priority, so I asked thickly, "Do you know what that is?"
She didn't respond for a second, then blinked, and as if she hadn't heard me said, "What?"
"Do you know what that is?" I asked again. "It's not human, it's a zombie. I don't know how, but it is a dead body that has come back to-
"What? Yes, I know what I zombie is, I have seen horror films depict them before, it is just that... I actually see one. Right there. In real life. I... I do not know..." She trailed off there, and I jumped in to get her to focus.
"Alright, well we need to figure out when your dad is coming to get you, so see if you can call him. I'm going to seal this place up like a clam, so you will be safe here until he comes." I stopped there, not mentioning the "if he comes" part, because it looked like that was what she was thinking already and I didn't want to make her more upset.
I grabbed the now dead dead body (I know it's been done a million times already, but I can't help myself) and half-dragged half-carried it out the wide open front door. After dropping it a good ten feet away I got back inside quickly and turned to look out through the door again. It was just starting to get dark. The minivan that served as my dad's "bus" was parked in the parking lot about twenty feet from the corpse, an easy run if only I had the keys. My dad probably had them on him and I didn't know how to hot-wire anything back then. Past that I saw chaos. The closest zombie in sight was part of a small group about a block away, visible between the cookie-cutter buildings, identical to mine, that were on the other side of the parking lot, but there were more people running around than zombies at that point. Some were bloody, some limping. My next-door neighbor, obscenely fat and loud as hell, was trying to get her screaming kid into a pickup. I'd always hated her, since it was obvious that she should never have been allowed to be a parent at all, and I felt sorry that the kid was going to die either in a car accident due to the chaos or be eaten by zombies because his idiot mother didn't have enough of a brain to stop and think about what the hell she was doing. They must have just gotten out the door, or the zombie that had busted through my door would have gone after them. I'd also noticed that my dad had propped open the metal outer door to try and catch a breeze and he had forgotten to close it before he'd left. I closed it, hoping that the thin, rigid metal would slow the zombies down.
I closed the big inner metal door. It didn't stay shut because part of the wall that it latched to had been torn away, I then knew why most people had dead-bolts, and went to the kitchen. I wadded a tissue up and stuffed it in my nose, put the knife back into the slotted wooden block, then from one of the drawers I pulled a hammer, a half-full 250 pack of four inch nails and a few stray 2 inch nails. I went to the double sliding-door closet next to the front door and pulled on one of the doors. The crappy sliding tracks in those apartments were notoriously fragile, so as expected, it came off easily. I moved the thick piece of wood over to the front door, turned it sideways and pressed it up against the metal below the ruined handle. I heard Faye dialing a number while I positioned the thick door, but the sound of me nailing it to the wall drowned out the message she left. After the first door was securely in place with fifteen nails holding it to the wall I went back and did the same thing to the other sliding door, this time placing it above the handle and just below the peep-hole. I knew that wouldn't hold up to more than a single Zed-head, so I went to the living room, moved the phone off of the "dinning room" table that we never used, dumped everything else off unceremoniously by tipping it over and moved it to the front door. I propped it up against the door and used the 2 inch nails to nail it to the boards. This was so the nails didn't hit the metal of the door. One of the table's legs stuck out into the walkway a few feet about chest height so I grabbed the offending leg and put all of my weight on it. It snapped off easily, and with a strangely satisfying crunch. To add a bit more to the barricade I slid the nearby bookcase up against the whole thing, books facing the table so that they could not fall out. Finally, I used the hammer's claw to pry off the six foot long 2x6 and the eight foot long wooden pole that served as handrails for the stairs and wedged them between the bookshelf and one of the stairs, making sure the stairs were still open enough to walk up and down as well.
After finishing my project I checked on Faye. She was sitting on the couch holding the phone, still looking shocked. "Did you reach him?"
"No, he did not answer. I left a message."
"Alright, well we need to focus on staying alive right now, and that means blocking off all of the ground floor. Either we can board up the windows and doors, or we barricade the stairs. Since all of the food is downstairs, I think we should try to keep the downstairs open as long as possible. We can always fall back if we need to. The front door is boarded up, so if they get in it will be from the back and I hope we will have time to lug some food up the stairs before we block them off. There are a bunch of things that need to be done, but are you up to some heavy lifting? The faster we get that window-" I pointed to the big-ass living room window directly behind the couch she was sitting on, "secure, the safer we will be."
"Um, yes, I am just a bit..." She trailed off and shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of the "What If's" that were almost certainly going through her head.
"Faye, I know this is difficult, but we need to focus on the here-and-now, because speculating won't help and we can't do anything about this mess except try to survive it." I know it sounded harsh, and harsh words on top of harsh reality usually only makes things worse, but it was what she needed to get her head in the game.
"Okay, so what should we do now?" she asked. She still looked scared shitless, but the shock was gone, at least for the moment, and from the look on her face I could tell she was starting to think clearly again.
I thought for a second, following her example, and a question ran through my mind. Why had the first zombie been attracted to my apartment? I looked at the kitchen and saw that the light was on and shining through the kitchen window, visible to anyone in that direction. "Well, we need to turn off the lights so we don't attract more zombies." My thoughts turned to the large window at that point. "Then I will go out the back. There is a metal picnic table about forty feet away and I'm going to prop it up against the outside of that window," I pointed at the living room window again. "There are other things to do, too, like get all of the long lasting food upstairs in case we need to abandon the downstairs, and fill up the bathtub with water so we can bottle it later. You can stay here and get started on that or come with me. I don't think we should split up for any amount of time, it seems like a cliché mistake to make in this horror film-like situation, but I understand if you want to stay here as well. The chance of dyeing skyrockets as soon as you walk out the door."
My comment seemed to really get her brain working, making real-time practical decisions and planning ahead, because her reply was, "No, I will go with you. We should not leave each other's sight, the risk is too great. What if one of us was snuck up on? Either by a zombie or someone who wished us harm, either can be avoided more easily with two sets of eyes."
Considering that was what I had been about to say, I didn't argue. For a second I wondered if she had read the same book about surviving a zombie apocalypse. I decided to ask when there was time, which was not right then. "Okay, let's go shut off the upstairs lights first, because they will keep attracting attention, then we can get going." She nodded to this. When we got to my room I remembered the machete and before we shut off the light I reached into the abyss that was my closet and grabbed it. Luckily it was at the front with the water, where it had been shoved when I forgot about it.
"That looks like a better weapon than a kitchen knife," Faye said, eyeing it with approval. I followed her gaze and saw, too, that the much longer, slightly curved blade looked more like a weapon, something deadly, than a utensil that you would use if your steak was a bit tough. I slung its sheath over my shoulders so that it hung off my back, with its handle in easy reaching distance over my right shoulder.
We went back downstairs and I was about to put the knife back into its slotted wooden block when I asked, "So, do you want something to defend yourself with? This knife isn't the best, but it is better than nothing."
"Do you really think I need it?" She asked, wide eyed in fear yet serious and practical.
"Well, not for what we are about to do, that should be quick and easy, but we need to get you something to fight with soon. Sooner or later you are going to be in a position where you will have to fight for your life and a weapon is helpful in those situations."
Her reaction to this was strange. She tensed up and her shoulders hunched slightly, her eyes started darting around, mostly to the window that we were going to be boarding up, and her lips started moving, like she was thinking so intently that it was almost out loud. She looked like she was either preparing herself for a life-and-death situation or she was about to have a nervous breakdown, and since she seemed to me like a strong-willed person I was not sure which was more likely. Then she said, in a clear voice, "I'll take it."
I handed her the knife, watched her for a second to make sure she wasn't about to stab me with it, then I went to peak out the living room window. There was nothing in sight so I said, "Okay, it's clear. Lets go, and stay quiet." I opened the door, and shut it behind us so a stray zombie couldn't sneak in while we were gone.
About thirty feet in front of the door was a chain link fence that ran parallel with the building, creating a narrow "backyard" with the street on the right and a pathway that went around to the parking lot on the left. Each house had a small patio area that was separated from its neigbors by large wooden dividers. The area was fairly enclosed, so I wasn't overly worried as I edged to the end of one of the dividers and peaked around it. The street was clear and there was no one in sight. The big metal table, which had two attached metal benches on either side, was about two apartments down farther from the street and, having moved it before, I knew it was heavy. I motioned for Faye to follow and we ran to it as quietly as possible. It was just off the patio of the second to last house and I noticed that in that house's storage space, which had its door open, were a large number of power tools. I knew that the power was going to be out soon, but I looked at the wooden dividers again and saw that they were only held into the ground with two 6x6 beams on each end. If they could be cut the whole ten foot tall, twelve foot wide arrangement of wood could be pushed up against the window with the metal table, making it much more durable.
With this idea in mind, I said, "Hold on, Faye," and went to the pile of hardware. It was not organized at all, but lying in a mess of sharp edges and points, so I grabbed the first thing that I found. I did not know what it was called then and I still don't now, but it was obvious it was a cutting tool and the blade was eight inches long. Other than that I noted that it would not be efficient at killing zombies. I pulled it out of the small room, making only a little more noise that was wanted at the time, and went back to my house. Faye followed, giving me a questioning look when I caught her eye. I plugged the saw-thing into the outlet next to the back door and went to work cutting the wooden beams of the dividers closest to my door. Faye figure it out when she saw what I was doing and stood about five feet away, keeping watch and ready to catch the heavy wooden wall should it fall on me. There was a moment of panic when a car drove by on the street, making us both jump. The saw-thing made a lot of noise, but there was still a lot of noise from all of the chaos that was just out of sight, so I hoped it wouldn't attract anything.
We got the two dividers that bordered my patio cut and move up against the window in ten minutes and we went back for the metal table after that. It was pulled over and tipped up against the dividers easily enough and we went back inside feeling much safer. Only very little light filtered through the large window after that, which, though dark and dreary, reminded us that our protection was in place and we were safe from outside threats.
"So," Faye said as we rested in the living room, panting from the hard work and adrenaline, "now we are safe, mostly. What is the next thing we need to do?"
I waited a moment, trying to catch my breath and remember what to do, then said, "We should sort the long lasting foods and get them upstairs, along with figuring out about how long they will last us. We need to get rid of the foods that won't last, or else the smell with attract the zombies, along with rats and other things that we don't want to have to deal with. Other than that we need to plan an escape route in case we are overwhelmed, and what to do if we meet other survivors," I paused, wondering how she was going to take the next item, "and where you are going to sleep." I moved on quickly. "On top of all that, I'm sure I'm forgetting or haven't anticipated a few things, so we will have to deal with whatever those things are when they come along. But, before any of that, we should watch the news. They probably have some useful information, although we probably shouldn't count on it to heavily in case they are wrong, and once the power goes out we will be pretty much cut off, so we should learn as much as we can now."
AN/ I hope the fact that this is really long will compensate for the fact that it took forever to post. Not that anyone cares, there have only been 10 views in two weeks. Whatever.