Chapter 2

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves " or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”-Ayn Rand

Snipes appears from over a hill and beckons us. He’s probably found somewhere we may be able to find some food. When I look up at the hill I see the settlement: a small town surrounded by a makeshift wall and a confederate flag atop a sniper tower.

Natasha speaks, “The zombies attacked here last night. Look,” she says pointing at the bodies in front of the town, “the Confederates and the Klan are usually pretty good about removing bodies after attacks. They must have been hit hard. Odds are they have a few infected who they still need to dispose of before they can get cleaning up. Remember guys, if they fire, we’re here to trade. If they’re too weak to defend themselves, kill them and be done with it. Approach slowly but not suspiciously.”

Like every raid, snipes sneaks off into the side and finds a place where he can provide cover fire if we need it. I can tell he’s spending a lot of time looking at the sniper tower. He must be worried that he doesn’t see anything. Confederates are usually pretty good about keeping snipers in their towers. We enter the town, something had bent and broke the gate before we got there and gone in. We call out to the empty town. Nothing. We fire off a warning round. Nothing. I catch 

Johnny eating something from his pack. His eyes dilate, “The souls of the damned the souls of the damned!”

I respond, “Damn it Johnny, are you high again?”

“My soul’s been damned to the abyss! Along with all of you!” screams Johnny as he tilts his head, “Come with me Natasha to Armageddon! Bring your friends!”

Natasha, kind of annoyed yells at me, “Will you shut him up? We have zombies on our a*s!”

We all gather around, snipes fires a round. While we count 7 zombies left. I pull out my rusted Lee Enfield and fire off a round breaking have the skull off one of the zombies. My round misses the brain and after a second he continues to stumble towards me.

Natasha rushes forward, a sabre in one hand and a club as another hand. She lunges at the first zombie she sees, jamming her sword into his mouth. It wasn’t enough so she smashes his skull in with her fist.

“I’ll save you mon amour!” Johnny is so f*****g high, he’s going to get us all killed. He runs forward and begins hacking at the zombies with his machete. Arms and chunks of torso start flying but he’s largely useless. The zombies grab a hold of him as he struggles to escape, kicking and screaming.

I fire another round from my Lee Enfield into a zombie that has grabbed Johnny. It’s a direct hit this time. The zombie releases his grip on Johnny but not before another zombie managed to bite into him.

In her rage, Natasha’s been bit at least 3 times. She’s not looking too good. Charles finally speaks, “We have to get out of this predicament or we’re all dead.” He runs his sword through a zombie’s head killing it.  Even when he kills Charles is still a gentleman. More zombies are coming. Natasha and Johnny fall unconscious. I run forward to grab her while Charles goes to get Johnny. Charles speaks, “We can take refuge in one of the buildings. Over there!” He points to a run-down motel not too far away.

We get in and slam the door shut, locking it as the first zombies begin to start clawing at it. Snipes walks in through the backdoor. Charles begins barking commands.

“Snipes, you sterilize and dress these wounds! You,” he points at me, “let’s barricade the doors and windows so the zombies don’t intrude on our little party, old chap.”

“Looks like someone beat us to it for the windows, ‘eh?” I call back.

“Well then just get the doors locked and wedge in a chair. That ought to suffice for now.”

Natasha comes to, “What the hell happened? Did we lose anyone? F**k!”

Charles glances over at her, leaning on his cane for support, which is what he always does when he has something serious to say, he removes his hat and says, “The zombies did Johnny in. He’s been bitten several times. We bandaged the wounds but  who knows how fast until he turns?”  

Silence. We all look to Natasha for guidance. I don’t think anybody’s seen her scared before.The only thing worse than hearing Natasha’s God awful Russian accent is hearing nothing at all.

Natasha clutches her cross and whispers a short Orthodox prayer.

Banging is heard on the door. The zombies are trying to get in. If someone doesn’t act soon, we’ll all be zombie grub.

Natasha looks up and says, “Get up the stairs and block them! Bring Johnny with us!”

There are two ways up in what appears to be a cheap hotel. There’s the elevator that zombies can’t use. Then there’s some concrete stairs accessible from a metal door. Barricading that door is easy. We just need to wedge a bed frame between the door and the railing. That will stop the zombies if they make it into the lobby. We head up the stairs and open the first room. The lock had been broken a long time ago. Inside lies a dead man, black; a bullet in his head, a gun in his hand and a stack of papers by his side. I look at the stack of papers and read:

 ¹O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

 ²Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

 ³Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

 ⁴For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

 ⁵Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

 ⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

 ⁷Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

 ⁸If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

 ⁹If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

 ¹⁰Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

 ¹¹If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

 ¹²Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

 ¹³For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

 ¹⁴I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

 ¹⁵My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

 ¹⁶Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

 ¹⁷How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

 ¹⁸If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

 ¹⁹Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.

 ²⁰For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.

 ²¹Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

 ²²I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

 

The Russian voice speaks, “It’s the psalms, I’ve seen this before. Just before the war hit, all the Christians started printing off Bibles like crazy. They said the book would save humanity from its collapse. They said God would save us from the collapse.”

I respond, “Will he?”

“No,” silence for a moment, “God doesn’t save us. All he does is give us the chance to save ourselves. What you Americans don’t understand is that God is not coming to save us. He simply waits for us to come to him.”

Charles steps in, “God has been deceased for a long time now, and as far as I’m concerned, this poor chap is too. In case you haven’t yet noticed, we need his bed frame to barricade the door downstairs. So I don’t know what you fellows are doing, but I have work to do.”

With that he grabs the body of the guy and lifts him up. The pistol slips out of his hand and falls to the floor. Charles throws him out the window to the zombies below. The zombies ignore him, probably because he died after being bitten.

We throw the mattress on the floor where we lay Johnny.  It’s not the most sanitary of places but it will have to do. We bring the frame of another bed to the bottom floor and wedge the door shut. The zombies won’t be getting to us any time soon. We head back upstairs and each eat half of an MRE.

“I will never get over the taste of this s**t. It is f*****g gross, I sometimes wish we had found something else in that abandoned barracks.” I exclaim. Everyone agrees with me. Johnny begins to twitch and cough. Natasha looks at him, “This guy’s a f*****g trooper! Most people would be dead by now. Hell, he may fight off the virus for a couple days before we have to kill him.”

I can’t stand to hear what she is saying, “He’s been with us since I joined your little f*****g roaming band. We are not going to let him die! There has to be a hospital which has something we can use to help him.”

Charles cuts me off there, “Look at where we are. I bet you this is where they locked up their victims that have been bitten. Each got a few pages from the Bible, a bit of alcohol and a gun to kill themselves. Look, there’s an empty whisky bottle on the counter. All we can do for him is grant him a quick death.”

Johnny moans.

The Russian speaks, “Easy there fighter. Death will soon be upon you. The lord is coming to take you away.”

I can’t bear it anymore, “Look, I saw a hospital and I know it’s the next building over. What do you think they were doing there?”

Charles in a know it all way says, “This town was under control of the Klan. This is where they put down the hapless Africans who were desperate enough to be slaves of these guys only to get bitten. We can risk our way,  fighting into that hospital and find the same thing except they’ll all be white.”

Natasha takes charge, “You know what, we’ll go to the roof and see if we can get over. Then I will go and search the top floor only. Then we find our way out of this town.”

We head up to the roof. On top of the roof of the hospital, which is a foot jump away from the motel is 5 zombies. They notice us, but they stumble on the gap. They’re easy to get rid of. We jump to the roof of the hospital. Natasha enters in while we make sure the roof is clear. The minutes tick by. 5…10…15 minutes go by. She finally emerges clutching a syringe. I get excited,“Is it going to work?”

Natasha looks at my coldly, “I don’t know but let’s try.”

We go back to the hotel where Johnny is beginning to seize. Natasha grabs a hold of him and injects the liquid in. Johnny falls still. We stand there a few seconds and he wakes up. He’s human. We begin to celebrate,

“I told you there was a cure!” I yell. A sharp pain jabs into my side, I look down and see Johnny thrusting his machete into me. A shot is heard. Johnny falls, snipes begins to dress my wound. We stand still for a moment before Charles speaks, “That’s the last of the bandages we have. Looks like we can’t be getting ourselves chopped up anymore. Also, we need to start considering our way out of here. By the way, everyone take some empty whisky bottles and a couple pistols. They’d make good trade items.”

Natasha glares at him, “Worthless garbage you f*****g hoarder!”

We head to the roof and look to the other side of the building. In the alley is a barricade and some figures at the bottom, going in and out of tents. 4 of them. They seem to be wandering aimlessly. We go back into the hotel, find a pad of paper and a pen and begin to write a message. Snipes writes:

“We are survivors who entered this town after the attack. We’re in need of a way out. If you are human, all of you join hands and form a circle in the alley way.”

We throw the pad down. It lands in front of one of the figures. He starts yelling and they all scramble, firing shots randomly into the air.

“Looks like those fellas aren’t happy to see us,” says Charles

“They’ve been eating the nuclear mushrooms too long. They’re crazy. Let’s just leave them,” Natasha says before muttering another Orthodox prayer.

We head to the back of the building. There’s only a few zombies and we can get to the town wall almost unnoticed by the zombie horde. It would be a 50 meter sprint to the wall but then we’d be trapped. Snipes rolls his eyes as he slips off his pack and pulls out a small bomb. Charles insists on taking a few Bible pages, pistols and some glass bottles. He claims they’d make good barter items. F**k, what has this world come to that it actually sounds reasonable that people would want what once would be considered trash. Snipes points to an empty cart that is attached to some dead Africans. “Those pigs!” exclaims Charles, “using humans like they are pack animals. Damn this world right to hell!”

Either way, it’s a great way to be able to carry the stuff, Johnny’s pack and the little food we scavenge out of the hotel. We make it to the bottom, still unnoticed. While we load the cart, Snipes uses some old explosives to blow a hole in the wall so we can escape. The zombies hear us and we hear many moans as they begin to approach.

whither shall I flee from thy presence?