An (Incomplete) Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Chapter 4
March 12th, 1999 - 5:30 am
"The area we were in last night wasn't very densely populated," Rachel explains the next morning as she carefully maneuvers the van around the bodies of the undead clogging the streets. Tom is sitting in the front passenger seat, gripping the door handle tightly while his heart beats heavily in his chest.
There were zombies everywhere.
"We try to avoid major cities, and the town we were in last night was thankfully not well populated. But there was no way into town without passing through a few major urban areas, and they're the worst."
Tom nods, eyes wide as he stares out the window. Everyone in the back is silent as Rachel drives slowly through the clogged roadways. Not only are there zombies everywhere, there are abandoned cars, dead bodies, and debris scattered all across the streets. It makes driving hard, she had explained, but traveling on foot was much worse. Even if they did have to stop sometimes to move things out of the road, it was still safer than being out in the open.
"This only lasts for a few miles," she says comfortingly. "We will reach open roads soon."
Tom nods again, eyes locked on the body outside his window. This one is heavily decayed, bones showing through the slipping skin of the face of the zombie, and it keeps opening and closing its mouth, reaching for the window of the van. They're moving slowly enough that it's hand presses briefly to the glass, leaving a smear of blood and decay, and Tom has to turn away, his stomach churning.
"You'll become desensitized soon enough," Kara explains from her spot leaning against the van wall, one of the sleeping bags bunched up behind her to make it more comfortable. "It doesn't get ... easier, necessarily. But the smell, and the sight of them become normal, I promise."
"I've seen some terrible things," he says, closing his eyes and leaning his head back on the headrest. "But this is... this is horrifying. These are... they were people. And now they're just... these things."
There are hums of agreement from the backseat, and then silence takes over as they continue their slow trek through the congested streets of Los Angeles. As Rachel promised, it does begin to clear out after a few miles, but Tom is still struggling to relax, senses heightened and pulse racing every time he sees one of the undead outside his window. Rachel notices, and reaches a hand over, pressing it to his knee. He startles at the contact, turning his gaze to meet hers.
"You're handling this all very well," she reassures him. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but you are. You're not weak, or whatever it is that you're thinking."
"I threw up," Danny says, and Kara chuckles from beside him. "I threw up the first time I killed one, and then I holed myself up in my house, refusing to believe it, until I ran out of food and water."
"I just cried," Kara said, and her voice is quiet as they share their stories. "They had chased me into a convenience store, and I crawled into the bathroom, barricaded the door, and cried for hours. I don't know what I would have done if Danny hadn't come along. He killed them, and I went with him. I didn't speak for two days."
Danny wraps his arm around Kara and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead, and she smiles, leaning into the comfort.
Eric is the next to share his story, and it helps Tom understand why the boy is so quiet and reserved. "The first ones I saw were my mother and father. They were going after my baby brother. I killed them... but I was too late. It was just me, after that, and I went on a bit of a rampage. I killed every one of them that I could find, and then... I turned my gun on myself."
Tom winces, his heart going out to the boy. He doesn't look like he's more than sixteen or seventeen, and having to watch his entire family die, having to be the one to kill them... Tom can't even imagine.
"I didn't end up doing it, obviously," Eric says, and a small smile lifts his lips as Tex reaches out, ruffling his hair and patting him on the shoulder. "It was two days later that Rachel found me."
Rachel is the next to tell her story, and her hand is still on Tom's knee. She grips him tightly as she talks, her fingers tangling in the material of his borrowed jeans. She doesn't seem to notice what she's doing, and Tom doesn't mention it. If she needs an anchor, he's happy to offer what comfort he can.
"I was in Alhambra with Dr. Hunter," she begins. "At one of the CDC centers here in California. I begged him to let me come along, to study the virus. I knew that it wasn't my specialty, but I was... fascinated. He agreed to let me come, along with his research student, Michael. We were all ambushed on the way back to our hotel one day. It was before there was coverage on the news, and we were taken by complete surprise. Dr. Hunter stepped in front of me, to protect me from one of them. Michael tried to run, but they got him, too. I survived by crawling under a dumpster, and staying there until they gave up and went away. It took two whole days. By that time, the city was overrun. It happened so fast."
Tom sets his hand over hers on his knee, and she turns to look at him briefly, smiling, before squeezing his hand and then taking it back, setting it on the wheel as she continues to drive.
Tex speaks next.
"Katie and I saw what was happening on the news, but we didn't think they would make it to our little town so fast. We were out looking for medicine when we first saw 'em. There were two in the pharmacy, and I've seen enough zombie movies to know to go for the head, so I attacked 'em. Took 'em both down, and stupidly let my guard down, went to look for the insulin. Katie was waiting in the car, and I can still hear her screamin' in my dreams. One of those bastards started trying to crawl through the window. I couldn't get at it's head, cause it was inside the car. Katie was crawling into the backseat, hidin' on the floor, while I tried to haul it backward out of the window. Parts of it kept comin' off in my hands, but it didn't seem to mind. It kept crawlin' in the car, without its legs, going after my Katie."
He pauses in his story, wrapping his arms around Katie when she crawls into his lap.
"Kept yellin' at her to go for its head, but she was too scared. I crawled in the window behind it, and was finally able to take it down. Katie and I didn't leave the house for weeks after that. Rachel found us the next time we did, saved my baby's life, and now here we are."
Tom stays silent, unsure what to say. The stories they'd just shared with him, the people they'd lost, seemed so much worse than what he was experiencing. He doesn't have much family, and the family he does have he's more than a little estranged from. His father, his sister... he hasn't seen them in years, and while he worries about them, he knows it's not the same.
He doesn't know what to say, how to communicate with these people he barely knows, so he stays silent, eyes glued on the road ahead of them. It's clearer now, and they're moving faster than they had been earlier. But toward what, he doesn't know.
"Where are we going?" he finally asks.
"There's supposed to be a safe zone, in Maryland," Rachel answers him. "But we're trying not to get our hopes up too much. We've heard stories about safe zones before, and none of them have been true. We're a little more hopeful about this one. There's a radio broadcast, it repeats over and over, telling people about the safe zone in Baltimore."
Tom shrugs, leaning one elbow on the window and propping his hand in his palm. "Sounds good. It's not like we have anywhere else we need to be."
March 12th, 1999 - 11:00 am
They drive straight through the morning, and Tom finds it hard to sit still in the van with nothing to do. Conversation ebbs and flows between them, and he spends some time getting to know his new friends. He likes them; they're all good people, but he doesn't feel like he's a part of their team yet. They are a tight knit group, and they work well together.
They have to stop, once, to clear the road, and Tom is impressed with how they move. They leave Eric in the van with Katie, while Kara and Rachel take point, guns drawn, covering Tex, Danny, and Tom while they clear the debris and the bodies from the road.
They're working together to shove a car out of the way when the zombies show up. Tex is inside the car, hot-wiring it so he can put it in neutral. They're trying not to make any unnecessary noise, so Danny and Tom are pushing it slowly off of the asphalt.
The first shot rings out and Tom jumps, head swiveling around to search out Rachel and Kara. The shot came from Rachel's gun, and she's now leaning on the hood of the van, using the metal to brace her forearms as she takes aim, hitting two more zombies in quick succession.
"Hurry up!" she shouts, and Danny and Tom redouble their efforts, shoving the car off into the ditch. Tex jumps out, and they work together, the three of them, to move a second car without bothering to hot-wire it. They manage to move it far enough that they should have room to get through, and then run back to the van just as another herd of zombies (a much larger herd) shuffles out of the trees.
"In the van, now!" Rachel yells, and throws open the door, ushering the others inside as she quickly takes aim and shoots two more of the zombies. She's about to climb in behind them when Tex's voice rings out over the chaos.
"Where the fuck are Katie and Eric?"
Tom turns his head sharply, his hand dropping from the front door handle to search the back of the van. It's empty aside from Danny, Kara and Tex, who had just climbed in.
"Where are they?!" Tex yells again, and quickly jumps back out of the van, scanning their surroundings frantically.
The road is mostly clear, with the exception of the cars they'd just moved, and he can see a good ways in each direction, but he can't see his daughter.
"Help me cover them," Rachel says to Kara, and the other woman nods, taking position beside Rachel. They both continue to shoot at the zombies that are slowly staggering toward them, though Tom has been in combat more than a few times and he knows that they are hopelessly outnumbered. "Danny! Tom! Help Tex find them!"
Tom nods and runs off in the opposite direction that Tex had taken, eyes searching the trees frantically. He sees more zombies lumbering out of the bushes on the other side of the van, the side that Rachel and Kara aren't watching, and shouts a warning back at them.
"Rachel! On your six!"
She spins around, hand on Kara's shoulder, and begins shooting at the new zombies, though she's starting to feel panic building in her chest.
This wasn't part of the plan.
She doesn't have a plan for this. She never planned for them to lose the ten year old in the middle of an ambush.
"We can't hold them off much longer!" she cries out, and Tom silently agrees with her as he runs along the side of the road, looking desperately for Katie and Eric. He doesn't find anything, and is about to head back and look in the opposite direction when he sees a flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye. Katie is desperately running through the woods, alone (where is Eric?) and he immediately turns to intercept her.
"I see her!" he shouts, and he can hear Tex yelling and heading in his direction, but he knows there's no time. "NO! Go back to the van! I have her! GO! You won't make it!"
Tex freezes in the middle of the road, torn. He's no good to his little girl if he lets himself get caught by the zombies, but hiding in the van while she's out there seems cowardly. He's still debating what he should do when Danny grabs the back of his jacket, shoving him roughly in the direction of the open van door. Kara is inside, the front passenger window rolled down, picking the zombies off slowly, and Rachel is standing right outside the van, shouting at Danny and Tex.
"NOW!" she cries, and tosses her gun to the side when it clicks to indicate that she's run out of ammo. She grabs both of her knives from her boots, and lunges forward, stabbing one into the eye of a short, stocky zombie, the other swinging back to catch a second in the temple. She throws their bodies away from her, taking two more out just as Danny shoves Tex into the van.
"C'mon, Rachel!" Danny yells, and holds out a hand. Rachel grabs it and lets him haul her inside. Her body is thrown heavily into the pile of pillows and sleeping bags behind her, and Danny goes for the door, slamming it as hard as he can. The hand of a zombie that had been reaching inside is cut off, though it continues to twitch even after Danny quickly locks the door.
"Get down!" Rachel shouts, and they all hunker down, hiding their heads from the sight of the zombies. She's hopeful that they won't be able to smell them, and that they'll pass through like when she was hiding under the dumpster.
They can feel the van shaking as the herd of zombies passes them by, but they're relieved when they don't hear glass breaking, or the telltale sound of rotted fingernails scraping along the metal. They're not trying to get in, which is good, but ...
"Katie," Tex sobs, and Rachel reaches out, taking his hand into hers and holding on tightly.
"Tom found her," she says soothingly, though she knows it's little consolation. They had left them, out there, all alone. "They'll be fine," she says, and she hopes.
March 12th, 1999 - 11:19 am
"Katie!" Tom shouts, and he sweeps her into his arms as she runs past him. She shouts in terror, her fingernails scratching his face and his neck as he holds her tightly, determined not to let her go. She's sobbing, screaming, and doesn't seem aware of who is holding her. She's trying her very best to get away from him, and Tom will have to remember to tell Tex that whatever he taught her stuck. If anyone human ever tried to kidnap this little girl, they'd have their work cut out for them. Unfortunately, in this case, he needs her to calm down so he can focus. "It's me, it's Tom," he says, running a hand through her soft brown hair. "You're gonna be OK, I've got you, sweetheart," he soothes her, and then tucks her head into his neck as she begins to calm down.
They are zombies on each side of them, slowly lumbering toward their position, and Tom's heart is beating wildly out of his chest.
"It's gonna be OK," he says again, and Katie heaves a giant, hiccuping sob as she continues to pound her fists against Tom's back.
"I want daddy!" she shouts, and Tom searches frantically for somewhere, anywhere, to hide.
I survived by crawling under a dumpster, he remembers Rachel saying, and holds Katie tightly to him as he runs for the nearest vehicle. The zombies are coming from all sides, and he doesn't have a free hand to defend himself, even if he'd remembered to bring the knife that Tex had given him.
He's defenseless, and he's this little girl's only hope.
"We're gonna make it," he says fiercely, and clings tightly to Katie's little body as he runs. He sidesteps two zombies, ducks under the swiping arm of another, and curls his body around Katie's protectively before throwing his body to the ground, using one arm to haul himself and Katie under the car. He tucks Katie's head under his, refusing to let her see what's happening, and waits.
The zombies pause their shuffling as they reach the car, and Tom doesn't know much about them, but he desperately hopes that these ones aren't very smart. He hopes they don't know how to bend or reach, because the car isn't that big. He thinks he could keep Katie safe, if he had to - the zombies could reach him, but if he angles them just right, they would have to go through them to get to her.
"I want daddy," Katie sniffles, her voice small and terrified, and Tom runs a shaking hand through her hair as the sound of the zombies banging against the car continues.
"I know, baby," he whispers. "I know. I'm sorry. But it's gonna be fine, we just have to wait. They'll go away, just like they did when Rachel hid under the dumpster. We just gotta wait."
Katie nods against his neck, and then sniffles again. She's sobbing so hard that she's trembling in his arms, and there's a warm spot on Tom's abdomen where he thinks she's wet herself out of fear. He doesn't bring it to her attention, just rocks her as best as he can while they wait.
"Wanna hear a story?" he asks, and Katie turns her head, making a curious noise. Tom smiles, but continues to hold her so she can't see what's happening. "When I used to get scared as a kid, my mom would tell me stories."
Katie hiccups, but nods against him. "O-OK. A story s-sounds good."
Tom closes his eyes and curls tighter around the little girl as he hears glass breaking. The zombies know they're here, but they don't seem to realize that they're under the car, instead of in it.
"Once upon a time, there was a very brave princess. Her name was Katie, and she was on a mission to rescue a prince who had been captured by a dragon."
As the story flows out of him, he can feel Katie relaxing against him in increments, her trembling slowing and then, eventually, stopping, until she's only sniffling quietly against him. He weaves a tale of a brave princess who fights her demons, faces her fears, and comes out victorious on the other side. Katie even giggles a few times, when he has misfortune befall the poor, klutzy prince.
By the time the princess and her dog sidekick are breaking into the castle to save the prince, Tom begins to hear a new sound - the sound of voices, and not just any voices, familiar voices.
Without letting Katie out of his arms, he crawls to the edge of the car, looking out to make sure the coast is clear. He meets Rachel's eyes across a length of road, and can see her deflate in relief. He smiles, and hauls himself and Katie into the open, glancing around to see nothing but clear skies and an empty road.
The zombies were gone.
"DADDY!" Katie screams, and Tom winces, wishing that she had moved her head away from his ear just a little bit, but lets his arms loosen from around her as she throws herself in the direction of her father. Tex is there in moments, sweeping her into his arms and sobbing loudly as he holds her.
"Katie," he sobs. "Katie, baby, oh my god, I was so worried."
The others catch up to them quickly, and Tom winces as he stands, beginning to feel the scrapes and bruises from when he'd tossed himself under the car. He's covered in dirt from head to toe, and his shirt is wet from urine. He tugs it away from his skin with a wince, casting a glance in Katie's direction. Her pants are wet, too, but she either hasn't noticed yet or doesn't care.
"Tom!"
He looks up from examining his shirt to see Rachel skid to a stop in front of him, her eyes wide. He grins at her, dusting off his pants as best as he can as the rest of the crew surround him, Tex, and Katie.
Rachel, however, doesn't look nearly as relieved as Tom thinks she should.
He realizes why moments later when she speaks, and he can't believe he forgot.
"Where's Eric?"
