Fighting to Survive, page 1
part #2 of As the World Dies Series
Page 1
Chapter 1 - Somewhere in Texas… The fort…
1. Terror in the Darkness
The hallway was barely illuminated by the blue light shimmering up the stairs from the TV in the living room. The light flickered along the walls and ceiling, providing just enough light to make out her path.
Groggily, Jenni walked toward her youngest son's bedroom, which was located near the top of the stairs. She shoved her long dark hair out of her face and glanced down the staircase. Through the railing slats, she could see her husband, Lloyd, in the living room, where he spent most of his time at home staring at a plasma-screen TV. She could just make out the black silhouette of his head against the brightly-lit screen.
Warily, wanting to avoid alerting him to her presence, she hurried into Benji's room.
The Mickey Mouse night-light illuminated the room just enough for her to make out the form of her sleeping three-year old son. Resting in his racing car-shaped bed, his little hand was thrown over his dark blond curls, his lips parted as he softly snored. Smiling, Jenni knelt down and tucked in his Winnie the Pooh blankets around his body. He was just recovering from a cold. She wanted to make sure he didn't get chilled. Her fingers gently caressed his soft, full cheek then smoothed his curls back from his face. He resembled his father in coloring and facial features. She prayed every day that he did not have his father's violent temper or cruel streak. She wanted him to grow up and be a good, strong man who would love his family and protect them: not brutalize them and make them fear him.
A noise from downstairs startled her. She tensed, waiting for the sounds of Lloyd's footsteps on the stairs. Instead, only the distant hum of voices on the TV wafted up to the room.
Lloyd hated for her to “coddle” the boys. He grew annoyed with her checking on them at night and accused her of spying on his late night habits downstairs. Frankly, she preferred it when he remained down there watching his porn, calling his girlfriends, and leaving her to sleep alone in their bed.
“I want you to not be like him,” she whispered to Benji as he slept.
“Don't be like him. ”
She kissed Benji's forehead and breathed in his sweet baby smell.
She loved him so.
Drawing back, she looked over at the side table. There was an oatmeal cookie still on his plate, but the milk was gone. Both the boys enjoyed a nighttime snack before bed. She didn't see the harm in it.
She used all natural ingredients in the cookies and they were delicious.
Feeling a little hungry, she grabbed up the cookie and began to nibble on it.
Don't grow up to be like him, she wished.
He won't grow up, a voice answered her.
She frowned as she chewed the cookie. That was a horrible thought to think.
He doesn't live past tonight. You know that. Remember? “No,” Jenni whispered, pressing her hand to her forehead. “No. ”
She didn't want to remember.
Images flashed in her mind: bloody, chaotic, and terrible.
“No,” she moaned. She closed her eyes and she stuffed the cookie in her mouth and chewed vigorously. It had lost all its flavor and gave her no comfort.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Lloyd's sharp voice startled her.
She looked up at him, trying to chew the cookie fast and swallow before he could see she was eating outside of the strictly-regimented diet he had created to keep her thin and beautiful.
“What the hell are you eating?” Lloyd's voice was terrible and his darkened form in the doorway terrified her.
She finished chewing and swallowed hard. “Nothing…I-”
“What did you do to Benji? Oh, God, Jenni, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Jenni looked toward her son to see his tender belly torn out and his intestines strung across the bed. One of her hands clutched the flesh tightly. Slowly, she raised her other hand to her mouth and felt that her lips were slick with blood.
“Jenni, what did you do?”
She began to scream…
Jenni woke and sat up sharply. Her heart thundered in her chest. In the dim light leaking in around the edges of the makeshift tent she shared with Juan, she could see that her hands were not covered in blood. Pressing her fingertips to her lips, she felt their soft, dry fullness and sighed with relief. Laying her forehead against her drawn up knees, she took deep breaths and tried to calm her wildly beating heart.
Juan's hand gently touched her back then withdrew. Jenni knew he was used to her nightmares and knew not to coddle her. She didn't want to be touched or calmed down after the nightmares. It often took her several minutes to gain full control of her senses and convince herself she was truly safe and far away from her dead family.
The blue tarp that made up the tiny tent rippled around her in the night breeze. A light from outside peeked through a tear in the top of the tent and cast a soft beam across her hands. They were clean.
There was no blood on them. All around her, outside the tent, she could hear people softly talking, snoring, coughing, and sneezing, as they, too, dealt with the night terrors that came with sleeping and dreaming.
Shoving her thick black hair back from her face, she took another deep breath. She slowly accepted the moment as her reality. Why her brain tried to convince her that she had not escaped the morning the dead took over she could not fathom. It was Lloyd who had taken Benji's tender flesh. It was Lloyd who had become one of the undead and destroyed their family and home forever. None of it had been her doing. She had barely escaped the house. Had it not been for Katie saving her, she probably would have joined the ranks of the zombie hordes. Katie had heard her screaming and driven up in that battered white truck to rescue her. Together they had escaped into the Texas Hill Country and found safety with a group of survivors holed up in a construction site in a small town.
She had survived. She was alive. She had rescued her stepson from the camp he had been attending, she had found love with one of the construction workers named Juan, and now, free from her dead husband's reign, she was strong and living her own life.
Taking a deep breath, that did not feel forced or ragged, she slowly relaxed. Letting herself fall back onto the cot, she curled up on her side, facing away from Juan. It was uncomfortable sleeping on the twin cots that were bound together, but she liked feeling him near her.
In the gloom, he slid his arm around her waist and she smiled.
In silence, they lay side by side and waited for sleep to come again.
Sleep hopefully free of the past and the terror that came with it.
2. A Moment of Peace
Juan listened to Jenni's breathing become deeper and deeper until he knew she was asleep once more. He didn't move despite his arm falling asleep. She was holding onto his wrist tightly. He didn't draw it away for he wanted to make sure she felt his presence even in her slumber. It was hard to see her struggling with the nightmares about what had happened to her children. It was especially hard knowing that he could not give her any real comfort.
But Jenni kept the dreams to herself, mourning in ways he could not understand. He was convinced that her evolution into a woman who could dispatch zombies with eerie efficiency was her way of coping with her children dying. As far as he knew, she didn't even talk to Katie, her very best friend, about the death of her children. In Jenni's waking moments, she was loving, outgoing, and funny. But in her dreams, she was afraid and shattered emotionally. It broke his heart.
His long body pressed up against hers, he could feel the softness of her black hair against his chest. His body was sore and tired from all the work he was doing on the “fort. ” The construction site the survivors were living in was quickly becoming too cramped. As more survivors found their way to the fort, it was increasingly more difficult to keep things safe and sanitary. There was one shower and one bathroom in city hall for everyone in the fort.
The survivors had to get into the old fashioned hotel that loomed over the construction site. There was a side entrance to the hotel and a front entrance, but no way into the hotel from the construction site without risking being out in the open. And the zombies did tend to appear out of nowhere.
Juan's first major task had been to make a secure way into the fort for the vehicles they were sending out to salvage supplies and find survivors. Finally, the “Panama Canal” was done and it was basically two gated enclosures leading into a walled off area where they could keep the vehicles in an old newspaper building delivery truck garage.
The old newspaper building was completely uninhabitable and would take months to clean out and repair. With the heat of the summer just around the corner as well as the thunderstorm season, the survivors just didn't have the time to repair the building. They had to get into the hotel.
Jenni's grip on his arm lessened as sleep took her completely. He kissed her shoulder hoping and praying that her dreams would not be ones of terror. Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the aching of his body and capture what little sleep he could before tomorrow came and a whole new day of hard work would consume him.
He was so tired in both body and mind. Jenni brought him happiness, but he wanted a rest from the daily terror they all experienced since the zombie apocalypse had started. He wanted to sleep in a real bed with Jenni and not feel afraid. Was it wrong to hope for a little peace for both of them? He hoped not, because that is what he prayed for every night.
{
Beyond the walls of their little fort, the world was still dying and the dead were walking, but all Juan wanted was a moment when all would feel alive and good. Maybe it was too much to hope for.
Perhaps this moment, listening to Jenni breathing as she slept peacefully, was all he could truly wish for.
With a long sigh, he tightened his deadened arm around her waist and held onto her tightly.
3. The Lurking Past
Katie sat on top of the city hall roof in a plastic chair with her arms folded over her breasts and her head tilted back to stare at the stars.
She was done with sleep for the night. One more nightmare about her dead wife and she would start screaming and never stop. The ache in her chest hurt so bad; she didn’t want to see her loved one’s mutilated form rushing her with clawed hands anymore.
The cigarette dangling from her fingers was burning down slowly.
Raising it to her lips, she took another long drag, then exhaled slowly.
She watched the smoke unfurl against the backdrop of the stunning black sky with pinpricks of stars. She had quit smoking when she had met Lydia. Lydia had hated smoking with a passion. Her fiance at the time had been a chain smoker and she had never even thought about quitting until she had met Lydia. After one look into Lydia's amazing eyes, Katie would have done anything for her.
A tear slipped free from her eye and traced down her temple as she stared up at the sky. Sniffling loudly, she took another drag on the cigarette, desperately seeking some sort of satisfaction in the process.
Lydia was still out there, one of the many undead hordes. Katie had barely escaped with her own life while on the way to work.
Thankfully, she had been rescued by a man who had been dragged down by the zombies. She had raced home in his old battered white truck only to see her beautiful wife gorging on the body of a fallen postman.
Her life with Lydia had ended in that terrible, brutal moment. She would never hold Lydia's soft, delicate hand, kiss her sweet lips, or feel her gentle caress ever again. It had ended just like that.
Another tear slipped free and she blinked hard.
How could she love Lydia so much and yet feel drawn to Travis?
How could she betray Lydia's memory like that?
Nearby, the guard on the roof coughed and stretched. It was Bill, the cop from a little town where she and Jenni had taken refuge. He was watching the street for any sign of the zombies. They had cleared out a majority of them from the town, but many still lurked out there.
Caught in bushes, trapped in buildings, wandering through the hills…
Who would have ever imagined that the dead would walk the earth outside of a George A. Romero film? She never did. Ever. She had dealt in a real world. She had worked hard as a prosecutor, doing her best to bring justice to the world while living a simple life with Lydia.
And then it had all ended.
This new world confused her. It was full of the walking hungry dead. Surviving from one day to the next was everyone's top priority.
But beyond that, there seemed so little time to mourn before making new connections, new friends, and even new loves. She saw it all around her. Families torn apart by the first day of the zombie rising were forever gone, but new families were being born all around her.
Strangers were becoming brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles to each other. The elderly in the fort were now everyone's grandparents. At the thought of the elderly, Old Man Watson came to mind, bringing a smile to her face. Although he could barely hear, he was everyone’s great grandpa now, one who hugged and kissed, who always smiled, always happy to be part of the survivors.
Jenni was her new sister. Jenni's stepson Jason felt like a nephew, Juan was her annoying new brother in law, and Travis…
She rubbed her nose with irritation and sighed.
Travis was the man everyone loved. Everyone listened to him.
Everyone believed in him. He was calm strength in the midst of chaos. He was handsome, but didn't know it. And, sometimes, he was a bit of a nerd. Despite herself, she smiled at the thought of him.
From the moment she had met him, she knew he was important to her life. To the lives of all the survivors. She had believed in him instantly. And as they grew to know each other, it had become more than apparent that he had fallen in love with her.
But as far as Travis knew, it was a lost cause. Katie had a wife in her old life and he saw her as unattainable. And she had encouraged that belief. She was afraid if he realized she was actually bisexual, he would immediately pursue her.
Despite herself, she knew in her heart that she would not resist him for long. She hated this new world where everyone seemed to be living at an accelerated pace. Life seemed so precious and short now that there was no real time to mourn the world they had lost. They had to survive and find their own small moments of happiness, or else the life they had now was meaningless.
“Oh, God, Lydia,” she whispered, wiping tears away.
“Huh?” Bill looked toward her.
“Nothing, Bill. Just talking to myself,” she answered with a forced smile and sat up. She put out her cigarette on the roof and sat with her elbows resting on her knees.
“Gotcha. I find myself doing that, too. ” Bill's big round face grinned at her, then he returned his gaze to the street.
Katie stared down at the hunting boots she wore. They had been given to her by the sweet old man who had run the hunting shop were they had taken refuge in that first terrible night. Clad in jeans and a tank top, she felt far away from the tailored and perfectly-coifed prosecutor persona she had worn for years. But, she had to admit, the jeans and tank top fit who she really was; a no-fuss girl with wavy blond hair and big green eyes who liked to wear comfortable shoes and casual T-shirts.
Standing up, she pulled the tank top down over her belly and walked toward the edge of the roof. The hotel loomed over the construction site that was full of makeshift blue tarp tents. The elderly and the few surviving women with children were asleep in the city hall, but the younger people were tucked into tents. The nights were growing warmer and warmer as the summer unfurled.
“Got one down on the far corner, but I can't get a bead on it,” Bill said to her.
She looked to where he pointed and caught sight of a figure swaying back and forth near an empty building on the far side of the fort walls. A lamppost and tree partially blocked it from view.
“I think it got its foot caught in the sidewalk cracks. It's really uneven there. ” Bill sighed and stared at the zombie sadly.
Katie didn't say anything. There wasn't much to say. A lone zombie was usually a pretty sad sight from a distance. The mutilated form always spoke of a terrible ending to a human life. But the second it saw you, it was the most horrible thing you had ever seen. Its eyes would flash wide and its mouth would open to reveal terrible teeth as it reached toward you and let out a horrible shriek.
“Hey,” Travis' voice said from behind them.
She turned to see him walking from the stairway. He was wearing a dark T-shirt and jeans. She felt an inward pang of desire that she tried hard to ignore. She couldn't help herself, but his broad shoulders and curly hair made her want to touch him. Setting her lips tightly together, she looked away from him. She couldn't betray Lydia's memory.
“Hey, Travis. What's up?” Bill stood up and tugged his shirt down over his beer belly.
“I think we're going to go ahead and take the street next to us tomorrow. It's getting hotter and with June hitting soon, it's only going to get worse. We need to get into the hotel, but we need our people safe and out of the way. ”
“Taking the Dollar Store over?” Bill waved toward the side street that they had yet to claim into the fort.
“Yeah. Can't put it off anymore. 'Sides, with the Panama Canal working, we can risk closing off that street. ”
Katie could feel Travis glance toward her. She folded her arms over her breasts to try to steady herself. She felt so lonely tonight. She wanted him to hold her, but she feared what that may lead to.
“I figure you'll wanna go in, so if you want to go get some sleep, I can take over,” Travis said to Bill.
Bill thought this over. “Did you get sleep?”
“Yeah. I'm good. We'll head in around nine or ten. ”
Bill glanced at his watch. “I could use about four hours of sleep. ”
He handed the rifle to Travis.
Travis took it awkwardly. He wasn't very comfortable with guns, but he was trying.
“Catch you later, Katie,” Bill said, patting her arm as he headed off.
“Sleep well, Bill!” Katie called after him.
Then she was alone with Travis.
“Did you sleep?”
She finally looked toward him and nodded. “Did you? Or did you lie?”
“I slept enough,” he answered, and shrugged. He took Bill's place and immediately saw the tangled up zombie. He frowned when he realized he didn't have a clear shot. “Is everything okay with you?”
“I'm fine,” Katie assured him.
“Ralph dying and Nerit coming here seems to have shook you up,” he said. He looked at her worriedly.
The two elderly people who had taken her and Jenni into their home above the hunting store that first night had come up against ruthless men that had killed Ralph before Nerit, his wife and former sniper for the Israeli army, took them out.
