White Noise

Fighting for your life can leave a person with a more of an attitude than they previously had. It can change the way you feel about love, last names, and flower crowns in fields. It taints every memory and every place you ever called home. Suddenly all you know is fighting, blood, and bodies of people you loved on the ground below you. Everything becomes scavenging, killing, and forgetting who you were before. The family you had, is gone. The one blood spattered photo is all you probably have left of them. That is, if you were able to kill them before they got you. I’ve heard stories about people that are immune. Two or three of them wandered what used to be the United States and now was just Zombie Hell. They were just false tales, I was certain. I wasn’t holding out hope for any sort of cure. I didn’t even know for certain if the virus had spread to other countries. But surely if the other countries were unaffected they’d have gone nuclear on us by now. To make sure they didn’t get infected.

In the beginning it was a fever. Flu like symptoms that landed hundreds in hospitals. Which was why the hospitals are what we lost first. Some turned a week after showing symptoms. Some lasted just a day or two. Soon all of the hospitals were filled with them. They turned the doctors and nurses and other patients. Turned, or ate. Those that hadn’t gone to the hospital with their fever turned as the hospitals were in the midst of going to hell. The ones that turned, turned on their family, friends, or whoever was around. Some got attacked and bit and ran, and then subsequently turned. Some couldn’t get away and were eaten. Some turned around their family and when their family couldn’t bear to put them down…they were turned as well.

You learn quickly that family isn’t family anymore once they get the fever and their skin starts to gray. They’re something else entirely. Something that doesn’t care if you had been married for four years. Doesn’t care if their son is only two years old and just walking and talking and doesn’t understand that their dad isn’t their dad anymore. Doesn’t know to run when their Aunt screams at them on the phone to run from Daddy and hide. Cries out to Aunt Lettie that Daddy had bit him and Mommy wasn’t moving.

You learn not to think about it. Because they’re gone, and you made a promise to keep fighting and not give up. When you reminisce, and start to think about the past, you fuck up and you get killed. Zombie Hell is about fighting and surviving and living.

Not about the ones you lost.

***

My group was efficient. We had a flow with scavenging and surviving. There were only six of us, and that was a complete group to me. Enough people that we were safe and could fight off any Z’s or human attackers. Enough to split up in twos or threes to clear rooms or scavenge. Enough to keep a good nightly watch routine and enough that we all got along and leadership wasn’t questioned. My leadership, that is. Any more people and we’d be in danger of making too much noise, having disagreements, or being unable to find a big enough safe haven. So, six was the perfect group.

Sasha tapped me on my shoulder. I turned slightly to look in her direction. Her other arm was pointing at a group of about nine of the decaying eaters. They hadn’t spotted us or heard us yet, so we had time to get away, or formulate an attack. I knew they were waiting on my word. My decision. As time had gone on, we had lost and gained members of our group. But one thing had always remained the same. I was the leader. They always trusted me, and I never let them down. My decisions hadn’t fucked us over or left us stranded or without supplies. I took care of them. In a non-friendship/non-motherly way. I didn’t let myself get attached to anyone. I took care of them; but I didn’t care for them. Caring for people gets you killed in this new world we lived in.

I waved my hand behind me, and Sasha led the others between the tall grass that had grown wild since no one was alive to mow it anymore. I kept my eyes on the group and glanced around to make sure no others came up from nowhere. Once I was certain the group had made it to the side wall of the apartment complex we were headed for, I slowly moved the way they’d gone.

And then Darren dropped his flashlight. The small horde of zombies all jerked towards the noise, and since the group was hidden behind the grass and climbing up the building’s fire escape, they zeroed in on me. “Shit.” Before they could take a step, I was off. Running through the grass, only trying half as hard to be quiet. They had heard us, but I didn’t want any others to hear me running and come after us too. The building closest to me was a two level bookstore. I quickly darted from the tall grass to the alley beside it. There was two zombies blocking the way to the back, where I was sure the ladder to the roof was. I cursed again, but held up the pistol my dad had kept in his desk. There was a horde behind me. I didn’t have time to quietly dispatch these two. I aimed, held my breath, and shot them through the head. The collapsed and I ran again, jumping over their dead again bodies.

Luckily I was right and there was a ladder at the back of the store, by the back door. But the bottom of it had rusted off and fallen. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I glanced around the corner of the building. The horde was running down the alley, fast and hungry. I backed up, and made a running jump at the ladder. My hands grasped the bottom rung, and the rusted iron dug into my skin. Despite the callouses from fighting and climbing, I felt my hands start to bleed. I put my feet against the brick and tried to haul myself up to the next rung. The one I was hanging on didn’t seem too stable. Just as I caught onto the next rung, the horde was at my feet. The loud moaning and decaying assholes started grabbing at my feet, teeth chomping.

I pulled my feet up again, pushing off the wall and reaching for the next rung. As I grabbed it, the bottom rusted rung fell off, and impaled one of the zombies in between its eyes. It collapsed and the others started climbing on top of it, trying to reach me still. If the bottom rung hadn’t fallen off I would have been able to get my feet on it and climb the rest of the way up. As it was, I had to push with my feet again. Finally I could get my feet on the ladder, and I scrambled the rest of the way up. On the top of the bookstore, I was faced with what looked to be the bookstore owner. Skin that looked like it was melting off of her face, and a hollow hole where her left eye should be. She had on a shirt promoting the store, and khakis. I holstered my gun and pulled out the axe I’d found stuck in a log in the woods. She noticed me as I headed for her, and let out a piercing shriek. I fought the urge to cover my ears, and braced myself as she sprinted for me. Then I swung, hard, and lodged the axe in her skull. It was enough to kill the brain, and she crumpled to the ground. Satisfied, I yanked my axe from her head, putting my foot on her neck to brace my legs, and looked around for a way to get two buildings over to the eight story complex.

I couldn’t jump the buildings. They were each taller than the next. I couldn’t go down and walk or run over there. If only Darren, the dumbass who’d dropped his metal flashlight, was on the roof of the next building. I had my bow and arrow and I could easily shoot up an arrow with one of my rope tied to it. But I would need him to be holding the rope while I scaled the three stories up the building.

As I was thinking, I realized the moaning and screeching of the zombies at the ladder had grown louder. I cursed yet again and peeked over the edge. There was about seven more, and then were using each other to get higher.

You know, I really feel like the TV shows and movies about zombies should have prepared us better for the possibility that the undead would move faster than depicted. Zombies were not slow. At least, most of them weren’t. They were fast, and could easily climb buildings if enough of them built up together. The idea of slow, arms out, brain mumbling zombies was laughable at this point because the real things were not like that at all.

I groaned and kicked one of the pipes coming up from the roof. I looked at the building on the other side of the bookstore. If I could get over there and hide behind the little door room area that went into the store, then when the zombies got on the roof they wouldn’t know where I was. I could figure out the rest from there. The store was level with the bookstore, so I backed up, stretched my arms and neck, and stared at the next roof.

As I started running, I heard Darren yelling behind me. I ground my feet into the gravely roof to stop myself, and fell as I did. I looked around and found Darren at the top of the taller building. Though I was annoyed that he’d caused this, I was relieved to see him. I pointed at the wooden beam that held up the small water basin-tower on the building. He nodded, understanding what I was doing.

I squatted, taking my pack from my back and setting it on the ground. I pulled an arrow and my second longest ravel of rock climbing rope out, and then zipped it back up and swung it onto my back. I took my bow off from around my body after I tied one end of the rope to the back of the arrow. I pulled back to my lips, and leaned back a little, aiming higher than the beam. I closed my eyes, trying to assess the wind. There wasn’t much of any, but I moved my aim a little to the left anyways. I opened my eyes, and let go of the arrow. It soared through the air, before embedding itself in the wood. Darren carefully yanked it out so the water wouldn’t fall, and tucked it in his pack. Then he took the end of the rope and wrapped it around himself, tying it in a double knot and wrapping his hands in it. He braced his feet against the edge of the building, then nodded at me. While he had been tying it on himself, I had been tying the other end around my slim waist, and wrapping enough of it around my arms that I wouldn’t swing lower than the part of the building level with the bookstore.

I edged towards the side of the building, and as I was about to assess what was below just in case, I heard more shrieking. The zombies had gotten to the top of the building. As one ran at me, I jumped.

I hit the building harder and with less form than I normally would have, thanks to the zombie that had charged me. He was now on the ground below me, not having been able to stop his charge in time. I bit my lip, muffling a groan of pain. My left elbow and hip had taken the brunt of the building slam, and were now throbbing with pain, and my elbow was dripping blood from the roughness of the bricks.

It wasn’t the time to be in pain. Darren wouldn’t be able to stand there for long. No matter how light I was. I had managed to keep my hold on the lengths of the rope, and pulled on them as I tried to spin myself to face the wall. I put my feet flat on the wall, and leaned back. I started climbing up the wall. Pulling myself up with my arms, and supporting the pulls with my feet. As I got to the top, I grabbed onto the edge of the building, and hauled myself over.

After assessing the roof to make sure there were no sudden zombies, I took a deep breath. Adrenaline gone, the pain in my hip and elbow soared. I groaned, and rolled onto my right side. Darren crouched beside me. “I’m sorry, Scar, that was totally my fault.”

“No shit.” I grumbled, pulling myself up. “Everyone else in the complex?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I used the fire escape and a ladder that was in one of the rooms to bridge over here and see where you had gone. I figured you’d try for the bookstore. Luckily I was right.” I nodded in reply, sitting up and pulling my pack around to my lap. Darren was six foot seven. His ears were gauged and he was covered in tattoos from neck to ankles and wrists. He had a head of frizzy brown hair, that was getting to where it was about to touch his shoulders. His beard nearly touched his chest.

I grimaced as the capful of peroxide I poured on my arm cleansed the scrapes. I put gauze against the deep cuts and then wrapped it in a bandage to keep it in place. There was nothing I could do for the aching in the bones and muscles of my elbow and hip though. That would just have to heal over time. I stood up, swinging my pack back up, and headed for the other side of the building. I saw that Darren had secured the other side of the ladder to the metal framing of the fire escape with torn bedsheet he’d probably found in the apartments. I got on my knees and crawled across the ladder, while Darren unnecessarily held the other end. Once I was safely on the fire escape, Darren crawled across. While I made my way up the stairs of the escape, he untied the ladder and pulled it back across, resting it on the metal, and then followed me up.

“Top floor.” I nodded. We always stayed on the top floor. There had consistently been less decaying people on the top floor for some reason. I climbed in a half open window, and was greeted with my worried group.

“We wanted to go with him to save you, but he told us to stay and clear the floor.”

I nodded. “He was right to do that. Did you clear it?” I sat down on a worn and dusty couch that looked like it used to be red. It was comfortable enough. Putting my bag on the floor, I pulled a water out and tried not to down it while they told me about how they’d cleared every apartment on this floor. We’d go down each floor tomorrow, scavenging and taking out any zombies.

Sasha went back to the kitchen, and started sorting through the things they’d found in the other apartments. She was small but mighty, like me. But she was more of a motherly type, where I had been compared to a marine commander. “This place hasn’t been hit by anyone yet.” Peter informed me, meaning no one had come to gather supplies from it.

“Good. That means the other floors probably have good stuff, and the stores might have things too. But we should wait a couple days to try the stores. There were a lot of them after I shot two. We’ll give them a day or two to scatter, then three of us will go out and three will stay here to clear another floor.”

Everyone nodded and, with that, scattered across the apartment. We would all stay in the same apartment. Safety in numbers and all that. The sun had just started setting; but we slept when the sun slept. Harder to tell if something is a zombie or a coat rack in the dark. Sasha beckoned me to the room she had grabbed for the two of us and Natalie. One of the guys had pushed what I guessed was a second couch from the living room, into this room. I immediately said I’d take the couch. They didn’t protest. They knew I wouldn’t give in. I liked sleeping alone, and I felt like, as the leader, I needed to make sure they came first.

Of course, I wasn’t getting attached.