We are in some brush pine at the crest of a hill that looks down into what I imagine was once a peaceful town. Now, it is a charred landscape. While there remain hundreds, if not thousands, of zombies wandering the area, there is a huge cluster around the school. There is another at what looks to be City Hall, then several more around a few buildings, houses and the local jail.
Strange how this town seems, on the whole, to at least be treading water against this situation. We’ve seen a few vehicles out and about on what seem to be supply runs.
After a meeting, we’ve decided to at least watch things for a day. We really just need to decompress after that ordeal back in Pasco.
Thursday, March 20
Tim is all for leaving. He says that the folks down there in Ritzville seem to be at war with each other as much as the zombies. I asked him what would make him think such a thing. So, he had me come outside and get a look with a pair of binoculars.
Sure enough, there was a fairly new fire burning …City Hall. Just a few blocks away, at what we are now certain is the jail, the roof is a den of activity. Men and women in uniform, are shooting at the City Hall building!
I have no idea what is going on, but seeing this has me agreeing with Tim. We let everybody else in on things as they woke up and we got moving.
Gas stops are becoming increasingly difficult as we find more and more stations have been burned down or dried up. Also, the roads still seem to be deteriorating badly. It doesn’t help that this was such a cold, wet winter. We are encountering some epic potholes and a few complete washouts.
I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep driving. This vehicle gets even worse mileage with all the ‘armor’ and it is not off-road ready.
Friday, March 21
Reached a small town called Sparrow Falls…it is Hell on Earth here.
Today, we suffered some setbacks…and losses. Currently we are holed up in a lumber yard. The good news is that the building is a huge open warehouse. The bad news is that the fencing was already breached in several spots. Fortunately, the roll-down door to the warehouse was simple to barricade and the windows are all up around the six foot area. So, while the constant sound of pounding is annoying, we are safe for the night.
The RV isn’t going anywhere until we can get tires for it. That is what brought us here to begin with.
When the left rear tire blew, we had to roll on for another three miles before this place sprang out of the hills. Sparrow Falls sits in a small valley. The sign entering town stated a population of 4073. Not one of those folks seems to have survived.
The river that offers this place’s namesake has washed out a good section of the highway just before entering town. It is there that things started going bad.
Rodney was driving as we reached the section of road that was now an expanded part of the flooded banks of Sparrow River. We already had everybody on the right of the RV to try and alleviate as much pressure on the flat as we could. We were just about through the water when the sound of spinning tires signaled that we were stuck.
Greg, Tim, and I went out first to make sure that there weren’t too many zombies in the vicinity. Once we saw that it was clear, everybody else followed. Rodney stayed behind the wheel and we went to work. It took us about twenty minutes, but we finally got the RV unstuck. A few stragglers had shown up, but Samantha and Reggie took ‘em out. No problems.
We climbed back in…that is when we realized that Amanda was missing. The sun was just coming up and we could see that we were in a bit of a dip. About a half mile up the road, there was a rise just before the road makes a straight, gradual descent into the actual town. Along this section of road we were on, houses dotted both sides.
When somebody goes missing, you can’t just start yelling their name these days. You likely will not appreciate what answers your call. So, we decided that we had to at least look around, albeit quickly.
Leaving Rodney and Julia at the RV with Joey, we all took off in separate directions. This was a big violation of our “nobody goes off alone” rule. But, we figured it was an emergency. Plus, how far could she have gotten?
Greg found her.
She had gone into a nearby house because while we were busy trying to get the RV loose, she heard a baby cry. When Greg arrived, she was beating and poking what had once been a girl about her age. Only, she couldn’t get a solid enough head shot with the table leg she was using as a weapon.
Greg dispatched Amanda’s tormentor and scooped the girl up, running for the RV. Rodney honked the horn once, the signal that we had chosen to inform everybody to return. When we asked Amanda why she had gone off, she said that initially it was because she wanted to use a toilet in peace without somebody right outside the thin door of the closet-sized bathroom we have in the RV. The baby cry that turned out to be a zombie had startled her so bad that she wet her pants, that was why she hadn’t called for help.
Only a teenager!
So, we rolled into town and the attention we attracted was immediate. Samantha, Tim, and I climbed onto our roof as Rodney edged up beside a small tire store. We hoped that the tires we needed would be in stock. Since there was a sign for an RV park outside of town, we felt we had reasonably good odds.
The problem would be gaining access. Already there was a swarm of those damned things all over. The RV was surrounded, and they were thick around the entirety of the building.
We tried drawing them to one place, but all we accomplished was bringing more to our location. There was no access from the roof. Our only choice was to get in from the ground. But how?
As the sun rose higher, so did our frustration. We tried having Rodney drive the RV away and leave us on top of the building, but too many stayed behind. This was futile!
The RV was starting to make a funny sound which meant that if we pushed it much more, we’d really be stuck. The only good news was that Rodney found a lumberyard with a warehouse that looked to be an easily defensible and sturdy place to spend the night so that we could regroup and plan.
We babied the RV to get it there. Of course plenty of those damned things followed. The fence around the yard had been torn down in places which led us to believe folks had stayed here at some point. They had left the roll-down door up; so it was a matter of just driving in, killing twenty or so that followed, and tossing the bodies out one of the broken windows.
We checked the place out to make sure there were no surprises hiding in a mop closet or seemingly empty manager’s office. When we finished, it was time to hunker down and come up with an idea.
Joey found a tennis ball somewhere and was busy bouncing it off the wall. Nobody complained about the noise considering the zombies outside pounding on the aluminum roll-down door were much louder. Amanda, worn out from her ‘adventure’, had climbed into a bunk and gone to sleep.