Ch. 19

8:57 a.m.

None of us said a word for a few minutes. The damage must have been severe in those cities for our world leaders in destroy them. There must of been millions of people who have been infected. Our leaders must have guessed that in order to maintain control, they had to annalite the world's major cities to do so.

I finally spoke up. "Is there anything else on any other websites?"

Diane numbly typed in the address for MSN.

"Nothing. Same news as the other day. Before this started," she reported.

"What about CNN's web page?" Kevin suggested.

Diane typed in the address and reported, "Same stuff as Yahoo's."

I groaned and walked out of the room. I needed to think and this small room wasn't helping.

I walked back to our mattresses and laid down. It felt like my strength had suddenly drained away from my body. Diane, Kevin and Champ joined me.

"What's wrong?" Diane asked.

I took a minute before answering. "I think we're fighting a losing battle."

Kevin laughed. "Your just realizing this now?"

"I thought it would be better by now. The military would gain control of this chaos and wipe out the zombies. But I guess it was wishful thinking," I whispered.

"Look, David," Kevin said. "We still don't know how this thing started. If it is a viral problem or some kind of chemical, there may be a cure."

I sat up. "Those people are dead. There is no cure for bringing someone back to life."

Kevin just shrugged. "It was just a suggestion."

"A stupid one," I said bitterly.

Diane sat beside me. "What's really wrong?"

"Like I said, we're in a losing battle. Our most important cities have been bombed because there is no hope in controling the zombies," I explained to her. "I thought that the government would be helping us, not obliterating the cities to 'solve the problem'. There is no hope."

I sat up and leaned my head to my knees. "Maybe we should just end it."

My speech was rewarded with a sharp pain to the back of my head. I jumped to my feet, clutching the forming knot. I saw Diane holding the flashlight I left beside my mattress.

"I don't want to hear you say that again," she yelled, waving the flashlight at me.

"What the hell did you do that for?" I groaned, rubbing the spot.

Diane stood up and looked me in the eye.

"You're the one who is telling us that we need to survive. That there is hope for humankind," she lectured. "And now, you're saying you want to give up?"

"You read the message," I pointed out. "All hell as broken loose. There only way to stop this thing is by total anhilation. Our world is dead. There is nothing we can do now."

She hit me with the flashlight again. This time on the top of my head. I cursed and grabbed the spot with one hand while keeping hold of the other knot

"I refuse to accept that. You got me convinced yesterday that we should not give up. I believe that now. I'm going to keep fighting."

Kevin nodded. "Me, too. Those undead bastards ruined our future and the entire world. I don't care if I have to slice off the head of every single one of them. Even though they already are, they're dead meat."

I had to chuckle at that. They were right. If there was hope for humankind, we had to survive. The human race is a fighting race. We survived the Ice Age, the Black Death, the Great Depression, and Christmas shopping sprees. I couldn't give up now.

I nodded at my friends. "You guys are right."

"Of course we are," Kevin chuckled.

I smiled. "We can't give up. Besides, if the human race doesn't survive, who else are you guys going to annoy?"

We all lauged at that. Kevin punched me in the arm.

"That's the David we know and despise," he chuckled.

"Well, someone's got to keep track of you guys," I said.

Kevin put me in a headlock. "Tell me you just didn't say that."

"Yes, I did," I mumbled.

Diane got up and started messing up my hair. "No, you didn't"

I pushed them onto the mattress. We wrestled around for a few minutes, acting like kids again. It was weird to have fun when their are a few hundred zombies outside, but that didn't matter. It stopped when I yelled 'uncle' because Diane and Kevin pinned me down and got Champ to lick my face. We sat up laughing and we didn't stop for a few minutes.

When we stopped, I asked, "so what do we do now?"

Diane shrugged. "I don't know."

"I don't have any ideas either," said Kevin.

"Did you guys organize the food that was about to expire yesterday?" I asked suddenly.

Kevin nodded. "Yep, we sorted them out so we eat the food that will expire first before it goes bad."

"Okay, what about useful items that use batteries?"

"What items we could find are piled up in generator room," Diane explained. "We also found a couple of portable generators that are charging right now."

I nodded. "Water?"

"Every sealable container is filled up," Kevin grinned. "They're in the back room with the other cold products."

I stared. "I was only gone for two hours yesterday. How did you guys do that?"

They both grinned but didn't say any more.

I rubbed the sore spot on the back of my head, thinking of what else needed to be done.

"So what should we do?" Kevin asked.

"I got something," I finally said.

I went over to the DVD rack in the electronics. After browsing a few titles, I selected American Pie: a classic.

"What are you doing?" asked Diane.

I unwrapped the package and popped the disc into the DVD that played previews of different movies on all the TV's. "I think we earned ourselves a break."

I turned around and found my friends with a shocked looks on their faces.

"What?" I asked.

"Again, we never seen this side of you," Diane said, her eyebrows raised. "I thought you wanted to be serious about staying safe."

I picked up the remote with a sigh. "We can't be on guard all the time. All the doors are sealed, everything is stocked up, and we can't find anything else to do. I say we kick back and enjoy the free stuff around us."

They didn't do anything for a few seconds. Then both at the same time, they grabbed the mattresses and pulled them to the front of the TV. I smiled and went into the grocery aisle to get something to drink. Indeed, everthing was in order of expiration, stacked right in the middle of the frozen food aisle so it wouldn't go bad. My friends really outdid themselves. I grabbed a couple of drinks and a dog bone for Champ. I returned to find Kevin and Diane fighting over who gets to control the remote.

We spent all morning in front of the screen, watching movies we never seen before. We even hooked up a home theater system and pumped the sound up to the max. Our teeth vibrated to different movies like Die Hard and Independence Day.

We ate lunch later and Kevin somehow dragged a basketball goal into the check-out aisle. It took a long time for him to persuade us to play because I told Diane of his skill. Neither one of us wanted to play him one-on-one, so Diane and I teamed together. Even teamed together, he still creamed us.

"Mess with the best, you bleed like the rest," he chanted, spinning the ball on his finger. We didn't speak to him for a hour after the game.

After we got tired of getting our asses beat, we decided to try a few games boards. I hadn't played any of these games since I was a kid, but somehow had a lot of fun. We had our own strengths in different games. But after a few games, we didn't care who won. And after a few more, it was a little painful to play these games. They reminded us about our families.

Afterwards, Kevin and Diane decided to watch another movie. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening on the Internet. Nothing else had changed and only a few internet sites were still working.

"How many people do you think are still alive?" Kevin asked quietly.

I shook my head. I then found something interesting.

"Look at this guys," I said.

It was a website that reported where the infections began in the World. For some reason, it showed that the zombies first showed up around coastal cities. As the areas moved inland, they grew larger at a faster rate.

It also showed areas that I couldn't figure out that were important. Just a few examples were Denver, New Dehli, Ottawa and Moscow.

"What is the pattern?" I asked fiercely.

"What pattern?" Kevin asked. "I don't see a pattern."

"I know there is!"

Kevin shook his head. "I'm going to bed. You can stay up if you want but forget about this."

I continued to stare at the screen. I watched the simulation over and over. I could see a pattern, but could not figure out what it is. There had to be some clue.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. Diane.

"David, let it go for the evening."

I sighed and nodded, turning off the screen. It's been a long day and I think all of them are going to be like this.

We walked back to the our sleeping places.

"I had fun today," Diane said, slipping her arm in mine. "Thanks for letting us let loose."

"I'm not your mothers. You're free to do whatever you want."

"Yeah, but you make it fun."

I smiled. "Thanks."