This confirms what I’ve suspected for quite a while. The world is dead and it is every man and woman for themselves.
Sunday, April 6
We had to run. Early this morning a convoy of drab, olive-green military vehicles came up the bank of Hangman Creek. They were unspooling coils of razor wire. Whether it is to keep people and/or zombies out, or in, we have no idea. Still, the fact that they (the military) were so close didn’t initially scare us. However, when a second convoy crept in and unloaded about twenty heavily armed, body-armor wearing individuals who quickly secured a building to our left (a six-story hotel as we discovered when we snuck out) it was time to leave. Best we can guess, the Air Force is moving to secure the main points of entry to Spokane.
Of course that meant we had to go out the front door. Thankfully, our immediate vicinity was clear as the zombies are down the street doing their best to get at the soldiers, or whatever they are, who are seemingly safe on the roof of the Hangman Creek Inn.
We made for the parking garage I’d run into when I’d been busy avoiding attack helos. There were a few stragglers that quickly made for us, but their numbers were thin enough that we could avoid them and cut through the building. The far side opened onto a street that looked like something out of news footage when you saw those poor bastards in the Middle East shooting up market places. The buildings were riddled with bullet holes; many had caught fire and burned. There were bodies littering the ground, a few were burned terribly, but still moved and twitched, unable to stand.
The undead were everywhere, milling in and out of buildings, bumping into one another without seeming to notice. Directly across the street from where we emerged was an avenue that led to a large cathedral with huge wooden double doors. Zombies were all around it. As many as could squeeze in were against the doors, clawing at it to no avail.
We cut to the right, following the edge of what had once been a huge city park. There were too many trees and shrubs to even consider cutting through. A few times we had to change directions because there were too many undead clustered to safely avoid. Michael and Stephanie were very effective with these iron-tipped mallets they both carried. Even Amber wielded a heavy-duty ball-peen hammer.
I had not heard the young girl speak much in my couple of days with the Thompsons. In fact, none of them were that talkative. At first I was a little put off, but I just decided that it would take time to build any trust. Hell, if I was Michael, I’d be leery of strangers, too. Especially when it came to my family. The fact that all three of them survived and operated as a single unit to keep each other alive…it’s nothing short of amazing.
We ran, putting distance between ourselves and the military invaders. I suggested the idea of a hospital, but Michael said that was like walking into a zombie beehive. Before all this he had been a local policeman. That revelation brought a million questions, but I’d wait until we were someplace relatively safe. He said that he had not found a single one of his co-workers after the third day, and that the entire medical district which we’re just on the edge of, had been the epicenter of the death of Spokane. The undead rolled across the city like a tsunami wiping out almost everything in their path. Then, like a wave, they slowly receded back to their point of origin, bringing the fruits of their destruction in their wake.
We found a strip mall with a sporting goods store that had been ravaged at some point, a video store, and restaurant that had obviously been out of business for quite a while. The sign board still advertised that it was “Available for Lease: call Gina at 71- 3 6”. The restaurant was two-stories high, and a narrow staircase went up one side, likely to an office. It would be feasible to go up the stairs, then, by climbing on the handrail, make it to the roof. This would give us a good spot to scout the area.
Michael and Stephanie agreed. A handful of minutes later we were on the roof. We’d drawn some attention; a good sized crowd gathering within about twenty minutes. We moved to the center of the building to stay well out of sight and try to plan our next move. A few times we had to duck under the huge air conditioning towers when we heard aircraft approaching.
So…now we wait until dark. We spotted an armored bank truck about eight blocks north and east from our position. There is a gas station just a few blocks further, if they have a battery charger on a hand truck, we’ll—
* * * * *
Holy crap…somebody is in one of the buildings below us! The shooting. The screams.
* * * * *
His name is Kevin Davis. He is forty-three years old… and he has been bitten. Twice. The first time—according to him and seemingly verifiable by the almost healed, red, angry scarring—was January 29th.
He shows no sign of turning.
Monday, April 7
Kevin is from Ritzville. He says that there is a group there being led by some fire-and-brimstone preacher who will not allow his followers to kill the zombies. He denies that they actually die, and has a core group of almost a hundred followers.
The preacher is Randy Davis…Kevin’s brother.
Apparently the first person infected in Ritzville was Kevin’s dad, Oscar. He returned home sick from his semi-annual trip to Seattle where he’d met up with a bunch of old army buddies. After Oscar turned, he killed Kevin’s mom who was the one to bite Kevin when he came over to check on his folks as the news of the epidemic spread and he hadn’t heard from them in a few days. Randy and Kevin restrained their mom and then found their dad in town wandering down the street. It was later discovered that Oscar had already gone into a neighbor’s house and attacked a thirteen-year-old girl.
Kevin had come to Spokane for help, but faced the same welcome I had when he arrived the day before yesterday. He said that his brother and those following him are holed up in a World War II bomb shelter with about thirty of those things tied up and in there with them. He was desperately hoping to find a doctor or a pastor or both, but now that he’s been in the city, and in particular the medical district, he sees it as a lost cause.
As I was helping him change the bandage on his left hand where he was bitten yesterday, I asked if he was going back to Ritzville. He said he has to. He has to try and talk sense into his brother. The five of us leave tonight.
Tuesday, April 8
This morning was totally insane! Kevin decided that he would act as a human decoy so that Michael and I could run to the gas station and hopefully get ahold of a battery charger. Stephanie and Amber would get to the armored car and clear it if need be.
We wanted to move at sunrise because of fears that the military would spot us easier using infrared goggles. Nobody could say definitively if they were or not, but we chose to err on the side of caution. The sun broke over the hills with what promised to be a warm and visibly beautiful day.
Kevin had a spot picked out that was fairly open and scaled quickly down a rope to the ground. He began moving up the block, and once he put distance between our building and himself, he picked out the closest car and smashed the windshield with an aluminum bat. He cut around a corner and out of sight, but we heard him smack a couple more vehicles as he moved away not only from us, but from our objectives as well.