Zombie Dawn (9 page)

The rest of the kids offered their report.  Bobbie, Tyler and Cody had been trying to get the Snow’s radio to work.  With some help from Mike and Mom, they’d run the antenna out a window, plugged the radio in, and set it up on a table with an office chair.  So far, they’d picked up only static but it was a start.  They’d been listening to the regular radios but got only music and canned programming; no new news.

Sean continued to think about water, which was good.  He had found two brand new trash barrels that Kate had bought and put them under a couple of our gutter downspouts.  He had covered the openings with chicken wire and window screens.  He was pretty proud.   “Dad, this way, when it rains, these barrels will fill up with water.  We can use the water to flush the toilets or, if we had to, we could drink it.  Tomorrow, I’m going to put that old kiddie pool out under the front downspout and get any water that comes out.”  

Sean also reminded me that Dan Curren had just put in a well for his irrigation system.  “If the water pipes stop working, maybe we can figure out how to get water out of Dan’s well.” 

“Great work, Sean.  And great work by the radio team.  You guys are awesome.”

At that night’s meeting, we were in good spirits.  We had found a bunch of survivors and hoped to find more.  We had continued securing the area, and had plenty of supplies for the time being.  We were working on water supply and communications.  Not bad so far.  We decided to continue work on the neighborhood the next day.

Jake offered to go up onto the roof to complete installation of the antenna.  We took him up on it, even though it was dark.  We set up a ladder on the porch roof and Jake flew up it.  He ran the antenna up the chimney and tied it on with some clothesline.  He called down “Hey, we have a good view to the south from up here.  It looks like Capute’s farm is burning.”

Cody yelled out “I’ve got something.”  I could hear him trying to transmit back to whoever he had heard.  I told Jake to come in, and ran over and told Cody not to speak to anyone.  “We need to be very careful about letting people know we’re here.  Don’t speak to anyone, just listen and let us know what’s going on.”

“Okay, Jack. The microphone wasn’t even plugged in. No one heard us.  I’ll tell everyone no talking.”

The transmission ended quickly, but clearly whoever was making it was under attack.

Chapter Eight:  Tuesday

The next day poured rain and was chilly.  All of our new people in the garage were fine.  We now had quite a crew:  My family, including Mom, was six.  Five Schmidts.  Steve, Julie, and Jake Miller.  Mary, Tyler, and Cody Johnson.  We had Carol, Jamie, and Rick Cliff.  It was getting to be quite a crew, and clearly we would need more space.

For the time being, we decided that my family would stay in the master bedroom.  Mom, Mary, Tyler and Cody would stay in Mike’s room.  Steve, Carol, and Jake would stay in Sean’s room.  Carol, Jamie, and Rick would stay in Bobbie’s room.  The Schmidts set up in the attic, which was pretty well furnished with mattresses and camping gear by then.  We figured that would work for a few days, and that it was better to stay together than to spread out.   It was already starting to stink, but we were already getting used to it.

No one wanted to go out much that day.  Sean refilled all of the buckets from the rain barrels and the kiddie pool.  The toilets were working fine and the water was still on, but we knew it was only a matter of time until the juice shut off, the pumps shut down, and the tanks emptied.  We still had plenty of drinking water stored up.  Mike remembered that we needed a minimum of a gallon per day per person for drinking and cleaning.

We started talking about eventually re-taking, and occupying, the entire neighborhood and maybe spreading out from there.  The Dillon and Snow houses were a mess, and we were not eager to expose ourselves to the virus that we knew was there.  The Schmidt and Cliff houses, and my Mom’s house, seemed fine.  We had not been to the Curren house, which was next to my parents’ house.  We definitely wanted to get there and to check out the well.

The house next to mine belonged to Clive Barrows and Eddie Lancaster, a married gay couple from England, and their adopted son, Charlie.  Clive and Eddie were in their early 50s and Charlie was in his teens.  Clive and Eddie had moved to Massachusetts after the courts allowed gay marriage in 2004 and had been the first couple married by our town clerk.

The whole gay marriage thing made me chuckle.  The religious folks were up in arms but to me it was simple—if I can’t discriminate against them, neither can the government.  Massachusetts is a liberal state—even our “conservatives” would be considered commies in Orange County and much of the south—and discrimination against gays and lesbians had been outlawed for many years.

I’d been trained in law school to break things down into pieces, and then analyze the elements.  My thinking was as follows.  One—is a person a member of a protected class?   Yes, other than the obese and pedophiles (and, many of us would argue, white guys) almost everyone was protected.  Question two:  Does marriage confer any benefit on married couples?  The answer, setting aside a couple thousand divorce jokes, is yes—married people enjoy tax, estate, and property ownership benefits that unmarried people don’t.  Three:  Can I discriminate against gays as a private citizen?  No.  Four:  Can the government, which orders me not to discriminate, itself discriminate against gays?

This answer was more complicated, as governments had effectively mastered hypocrisy over hundreds and thousands of years.  It depended on opinion polls, lobbyists, and campaign contributions and not on reason, logic, the golden rule, or any other rationale developed by and for non-governmental entities.  The second great ability of government was misdirection and public relations.  The third was avoidance.  Combine the hypocrisy with the misdirection and the avoidance and you were left with the quagmire that ruled the western world.  At least someone had gotten this one right!

  In any event, I hoped Clive and Eddie were okay, because they were close friends and a couple of the funniest bastards I’d ever met.  Don’t get me wrong, even though I am very pro-gay and pro-gay marriage, really effeminate guys still creep me out.  Clive and Eddie were just good folks who kept their sex lives in their bedroom.

  We decided to cover more ground.  Stan and Wes Schmidt and Steve Miller would take the Curren house.  Since we planned to occupy it, we decided that we would not move anything out, but just survey it for supplies and defense.  Mike (who hadn’t stopped pestering me to get out on a “mission”), Jake and I would run some wires along Chestnut Street, empty out and burn the Dillon and Snow houses, and burn any dead bodies at that end of our street.  Kate, Stan Jr. and Julie would check out the Barrows house for supplies and defense.

We left early.  I got the Hummer because we were going the furthest and moving the most stuff.  Jake had the Mini-14 and 5 20 round magazines.  Mike carried a .12 gauge and 50 rounds plus Dads 9 mil.  I had the M4 with the red dot sights with 5 30 round magazines and also my .45 with 4 8 round magazines.  We loaded up the Hummer with a few gas cans and all the wire we could find.  I remembered to grab some matches and I stowed a few grenades and some extra ammo in the Hummer just in case.

Stan’s team would walk to the Curren house and Kate’s team would walk to the Barrows house.  We each had radios and Sean would monitor them from the house.

We were at the Dillon’s by 7:00 a.m.  We began to run wire from the back of the Dillon property through the trees to the edge of our street.  We ran three courses then did the same over at the Snow Property.  The way we had it wound around trees at different heights would definitely slow down the undead for a bit and give us a pretty good warning.  We did not see any zombies out on Chestnut Street.   We spent a little while trimming some brush so that we could see out in certain places and used the rest to cover our barricade of cars.  I walked down Chestnut Street and it looked pretty good from there.

By 9:00, we had cleared the Dillon house—it was empty of people and zombies—and searched it carefully.  We found a few things that might be useful—knives, hand tools, boots, blankets, pillows and winter clothing—and also an old landscape trailer.  The Hummer had a hitch so we hooked up the trailer and loaded it with our finds.  We found a nice Rolex, which we took because it was a quality watch and would come in handy for timekeeping or trade.   We grabbed some jewelry and other valuables for trade.  We found two pairs of cross country skis, boots and poles and two nice mountain bikes.   We also took all of the food, soda, and water they had.  They had a bunch of Peanut M & M’s, which we took, and Skittles, which we naturally left behind.   Who invented Skittles, and why?

We put on work gloves and dragged the dead into the Dillon house.  The zombies rotted really fast and they stank.  Lots of body parts fell off and we had to go back for them.  When we had loaded up the dead zombies, Mike poured some gas in and around the house and, after we had radioed back to let them know we were about to light, threw on a match.  The house burned quickly and we noticed that the zombies burned well and almost completely, leaving just a fine ash and bones.

We sat in the Hummer and watched the fire for awhile while we ate lunch.  Mom had packed meatloaf sandwiches, which I loved.  We doused ourselves with hand cleaner before we ate.  Not sure if it worked on the zombie virus, but it made us feel better.

We wanted to see if we’d draw any zombies and after about thirty minutes a group of four arrived.  They tried to get through our barrier but got trapped.  It worked great.  Mike begged until I let him end them with the crowbar.  It took him a few whacks, but he improved.  Ironic, but I was proud of him. He even shared, letting Jake have the last one.   

Chapter Nine:  Back to the Snow House

Next, we went to the Snow house.  I wanted to examine this one in detail, since I figured Dave probably had some hidden goodies in there.  We cleared the upstairs quickly; it was empty.  We started in the attic.  Not much up there; old furniture and junk.  There was a cabinet that had an old Lee-Enfield in it so we grabbed it.  Also, a pretty nice katana that Mike claimed.  On the second floor, we grabbed winter clothes, boots, and some jewelry and valuables.  Since I was going to burn their house down, I wanted to save at least some of their stuff.  I thought twice about it, but the entire house was full of zombie virus.  It had to go.

On the first floor, we found some food, water, knives, and some excellent pans.  We took those, a couple of small radios, and a couple of battery operated clocks.  We found a large cache of batteries and three large Maglites.

Next we descended into the basement using a ladder that we’d taken from the Dillons.  We had emptied the gun safe but there was a lot of food (including crates of MREs) and water. It was hard work to relay all of those supplies up the ladder and into the Hummer. I also wanted to explore more.  It was a charnel house but I figured something must be hidden down there.  First, I checked the safe again.  Empty.  Next, I checked the hidden room.  Other than a second case of grenades, which we took, it was empty.  On some shelves in the main part of the basement, there was a nice rack of expensive camping supplies, stoves, lanterns, sleeping bags and packs, and we took all of that.  I sealed the hidden room carefully, hoping that it wouldn’t burn completely.  Perhaps the tunnel would come in handy some day.

They had a full tank of oil and the Hummer was a diesel so we took a hand pump and filled up the Hummer and four 5 gallon gas tanks that we found.

I decided to take one more look around before we left.  In a dark corner of the basement there was a pile of debris and construction materials.  That did not really fit with the rest of Dave’s house so I did some digging.  Buried in the junk were 4 cases of .50 cal machine gun ammo belts and, further down, a .50 cal machine gun.  Behind that was a crate of Claymore mines.  As crazy as it sounds, I was like a kid on Christmas morning.  We almost killed ourselves getting that stuff out, but we did it.

Next, we checked the shed again.  I showed Jake and Mike the tunnel.  They thought it was cool and wanted to keep it.  I reminded them that we didn’t know about the virus and that the Snow house was too far away to guard.  Eventually, they agreed that it had to go.   We found some nice extension ladders behind the shed and, under a tarp, two Honda generators.  We loaded all of that up.

This time, Jake got to fire up the house.  Mike called Sean to let him know we were firing.  Sean said all was well at home.  Jake got it going with a single match and we drove down the street a bit to watch the fire and see if any zombies came out.  None did, so we drove to the Barrows house to check on Kate.  That house was quiet and empty so we called Sean and asked if Kate was home.

He said they were home, and had brought Eddie and Charlie with them.  Clive hadn’t made it; they think he had died of the flu, not from the zombie virus.  That was depressing proof that life as usual hadn’t stopped just because of our emergency situation. 

Jake, Mike and I headed over to the Curren house.  Steve, Wes and Stan had their hands full but had been able to “subdue” a dozen zombies without firing a round.  Stan used an extendable police baton.  Wes carried a crowbar, like I did.  Steve carried one of the cutlasses from my Dad’s house.  Apparently they were some bad asses.  Each took down four zombies without drawing any new ones.

We looked around the Curren house.  It was empty and in good condition.  There were plenty of supplies and everything looked good.  Wes had checked out the pump and figured he could keep it going with a generator or, if we could find one, get it to work with an old fashioned manual pump.  It was only hooked up to the irrigation system but the water looked clean and fresh.