I locked back up and retreated to the master bedroom on the upper level. Although it felt nice to lay in a real bed, I felt restless throughout the night. The undead have no sense of time or seasons. They just wander. I heard them outside the house, moaning and dragging their way through the brush. One of the things even banged on the front door for several minutes before giving up and shambling into the night.
They couldn’t get in. But I couldn’t escape the image of the undead man with the askew jaw coming at me with his broken length of tree limb. They could use tools, I kept thinking. And if they can use tools, they might find a way in. All they had to do was throw a rock through a window.
I slept with my Glock on the headboard.
I slept in snatches of little naps. Although I lavished in the luxury of a queen-sized bed all to myself, I found myself longing for a dumpster.
I woke, went to the bathroom and tried the faucet. No running water. I don’t know what else I expected, turndown service perhaps? Pizza delivery? Damn, I miss the casual comforts.
I went to the garage, hoping to find another motorcycle. An SUV hulked in the dusty light slanting in from the window. There was no motorcycle. I settled for a mountain bike I found hanging from the garage ceiling. I took it down from its hook and wheeled it to a man-door cut into the side of the garage. I drew my Glock and cracked the door for a peek outside. One of them wandered under a grape arbor in the morning light one yard over. A fence stood between it and me. I pushed open the door and wheeled the bike out into the morning sun.
The thing under the grape arbor turned toward me as I exited the garage. I think it smelled rather than saw me. It moved on rusty hinges on its approach. The fence stopped it. It clawed and snorted, letting out angered grunts of frustration.
I watched it struggle for a moment, shaking my head in sympathy at its failed state. I fixed the Gibson on my back and checked the locking strap to make sure the instrument was secure. I tucked my Glock into the rear of my waistband.
I took a final look at the undead creature, one yard over, howling out its thirst for my flesh. I flipped the creature off—a useless gesture. I mounted the mountain bike and pushed off into the street.
In another era, not long ago, I imagined the suburban street brimming with activity. I imagined kids playing pickup games of soccer, flying kites, or riding bikes and big wheels. I imagined mothers putting the finishing touches on dinners and calling children in to eat. I imagined fathers and mothers coming home from work and spending time with their kids, perhaps taking a moment to push them on swings or to engage in a spontaneous wrestling match in the front yard. I imagined a Saturday of washing cars. I heard the drone of lawnmowers and summer birds dressing the neighborhood with enchanting rhythms and songs.
Those days were gone. Garbage strewed the street, tipped over cans of it, broken debris, papers, discarded toys. Cars, parked on the curbs, rested like hunching turtles, some with broken windows or open doors, their alarms long-since exhausted, batteries dead, their hulks left to ruin, waiting for rust.
I kept the plume of smoke in front of me as I rode. I gained progress. But as I neared the source of the smoke, I spotted more of them. I took back jogs through alleys. I walked my mountain bike over yards. In two cases, I pushed the bike through abandoned buildings. The closer I got to the refinery, the thicker the streets became with them.
My progress slowed until I had to find cover, high ground, a place where I could survey my surroundings and make a plan. I entered a three-story bank building a few blocks away from the refinery and found my way to the roof. If there were humans in the refinery and if they were putting out a smoke signal to draw other humans to them, the same signal had also attracted thousands of undead. The things swarmed around the refinery. They drew to within yards of the security fence surrounding the compound and stood, looking on, leaving a few yards between them and the chain link. I wondered why they weren’t shoving each other up against the steel linkage.
I sat on a parapet surrounding the roof, my legs dangling over, and watched. After nearly a half an hour, one of the things peel out of the hoard and stuttered to the fence. It reached with one of its pale hands and touched the wire. Its body stiffened in the current of electricity. I heard the power arching even from where I sat, two blocks away.
I smiled, humans must be inside the refinery. The compound’s occupants had probably started the fires to signal others like me. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have electrified the perimeter. They had even managed to manufacture electricity. The refinery, with all of its food, had drawn thousands of undead, but those inside the compound didn’t seem to care. Perhaps they thought of the onslaught of undead as a worthwhile risk in the prospect of drawing other humans into the compound.
But the fact was, there was no way I could get to the refinery, not through the hoards of undead crushing around the electric fence. Even if I could get within shouting distance without the things taking me down, I couldn’t differentiate myself from the undead. To my supposed allies inside the compound, I would look like just another zombie, thirsty, looking for an opportunity to penetrate their perimeter and get at human flesh.
Somehow, I had to get a message into the compound.
I massaged my temples. I closed my eyes. In the intensity of thought, I heard my stomach rumble. I didn’t realize how hungry I had become.
As I sat on the roof of the old bank, the sun scorching my skin—damn, I wished I had stolen a hat—I thought back to a day in elementary school. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Fiercen, had taken us all outside on September 21st, not long after the school year had started. It was the International Day of Peace. She sat us down on the grounds and told us the sentiments of children expressed peace in its purest form. She gave us slips of paper and told us to write something that promoted peace.
I still remember the sentence I wrote on that sheet of paper. “I wish everyone would stop shooting each other and learn that we are all alike.” Not exactly profound, but hey, I was eight years old.
Mrs. Fiercen marched us all to the playground where we met a man standing next to an enormous air tank. She gave us each a balloon and told us to roll up our messages and put them inside. We lined up behind the man. One by one, he took our balloons, filled them with helium and gave them back to us. Soon, we all stood there on the playground, a flower patch of children holding colorful balloons. Mrs. Fiercen gave a short speech about peace on earth, about how we should all learn to not judge each other, and how we all should learn to get along. After her speech, she had us all count down from ten. When we hit zero, we released our balloons.
I will never forget all that color flying up into the sky—red, white, blue, green, yellow, pink. I watched my balloon ascend, keeping my eyes on it until it disappeared into oblivion. As a child, I actually thought that we had sent our twenty or so balloons off on a mission, that our messages would do good in the world.
As I reflected on my balloon flying up into the sky, an idea hit me. I could get a message into the compound, not with a balloon, but with something else. I had seen a Walmart on the outskirts of town and I was certain I could find what I needed there.
I didn’t have time to visit Walmart before nightfall. I decided to bed down in the old bank building. I found a secluded room with a lock and spread out my bedroll next to a voluminous, executive desk. I locked up and slid a file cabinet in front of the door for good measure. Tomorrow was going to be rough. I needed sleep.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the gnawing sense that the undead were all around the building, lurching through the streets. Perhaps some of them were onto my scent and gathering. I closed my eyes, too tightly at first. I forced the pressure out and lightened the intensity in my mind with a series of affirmations of indifference. I had taken on a new mantra, a sentence that had been flowing through my mind countless times on an almost hour-by-hour basis over the past few days. I am nothing in this world; I am impartial to life or death. I must have repeated this in my mind fifty times before I finally drifted off to sleep.
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