Hoping to get a jump on whoever it is, I scramble forward and out the passenger side door. Lights are coming on in Tim’s RV now as I am looking everywhere with no idea what to expect. A bunch of zombies on the heels of a hot meal…a squad of soldiers…or perhaps pursuit from Spokane Air Base…the last thing I expected was Perry Rose.
At just about five-feet-eight inches tall and easily over two hundred sixty pounds with curly, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, more freckles than any five people that I’ve ever known combined, a permanent blush in his cheeks, and a stutter that only gets worse when he is excited, Perry is a terrified twenty-year-old who had been serving his enlistment in the army at Ft. Lewis. Once he was able to speak, which was a few minutes, he told all of us just how much worse things could get from what we imagined.
The United States of America is dead.
The world is dead.
I’ll let Perry tell you.
* * * * *
“My name is Perry Rose. I was stationed at Ft. Lewis in Washington State. When the Z-Plague began, the Powers-That-Be spent so much time arguing that the events taking place could not possibly be happening that by the time they faced reality, it was too late.
Nations around the world began blaming each other. Moscow managed a “limited” nuclear strike of China. Before they went completely silent, Israel eliminated Tehran, Cairo, and Damascus with tactical nuclear weapons.
Our own armed forces fractured shortly after the President was reported dead. The Vice-President simply vanished and the chain-of-command with it. Nobody stepped forward, and when somebody in our own military suggested nuking our own cities, the last straw burned away. Still, New York vanished in a mushroom cloud before the power grids failed.
There are rumors that DC, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Chicago, San Diego and Atlanta also took warheads. But, communication is gone. Also, it was being said that a rebel faction of our government launched two of our space shuttles with orders to eliminate specific satellites.
There is no order. No law. Only chaos. Expect no help. Trust no one.
The last estimates, and this was the one that convinced me and several others to abandon our post, were issued on February 24th. The ratio of Z-Plague units to living, uninfected humans was 7,346:1”
* * * * *
We’ve invited Perry to join us. Julia looked him over and pronounced him clean. He was grateful. We then filled him in briefly on our plans for tomorrow. He was skeptical that there were any survivors left in Ritzville.
He spent the last six days in the basement of a house there. There were no sights or sounds of survivors. Still, we’ll go to be certain.
Additionally, after hearing about what sorts of folks are traveling the roads, we travel only at night and must find a hiding place every morning.
Thursday, April 17
In the basement of an old brick building in downtown Ritzville, we found Kevin’s brother Randy and his followers. The building itself was flooded ankle deep in vile smelling water. It was clear there had been a fire.
It was obvious when we went in this morning that looters had been through this tiny town. Not just a few from the looks. Every single building showed signs of damage as not a single pane of unbroken glass remained on Main Street.
The dead litter the street. Most shot several times by what, judging from the damage to the buildings as well, had to be a fairly high caliber machinegun. A few of the dead are dressed in leather or military fatigues. It seems this band was a mix of soldier and civilian. They clearly have a zero tolerance policy on those who are bitten. Each one has a single shot to the back or side of the head in addition to his or her bite.
Kevin and I along, with Perry, Steve, Meredith, and Greg went into town early this morning. It was almost too easy; the looters had taken out most of the zombies. The town population according to the sign welcoming you claims 1736. Kevin says that if you add a few hundred to that for the migrant workers you wouldn’t be off by much.
He led us to this old spire-capped building and I could tell he was already prepared to find no survivors. A few lone stragglers stumbled out from various buildings to greet us, but none were close enough to pose any real threat.
The entry door was already blown open. That was when we discovered the water just lapping against the raised lip of the frame. We debated going in. Greg raised the argument that if the water found any cut or nick, who could be certain that we would not catch the infection.
Kevin finally decided that he would go in alone. Everybody moved to window frames and I stayed in the doorway to cover him in case any of those things were in there hidden amongst the debris. He moved cautiously, tapping the floor in search of the hatch that would open to the cellar. He knew it was somewhere in the northeast corner of the room, but with the interior such a shambles it was tough to gauge just where.
Finally he found it. In the meanwhile, Samantha and Perry had dispatched a few of the zombies that were now closing in. There still weren’t enough to be worried about, but Perry called that he could see more movement up the street towards what looked to be a residential area.
I watched Kevin struggle with the submerged door. It was Steve who came up with the idea to break the metal lip that was helping keep the water in. Greg ran across the street to a big pick-up truck with one of those black storage boxes in the back. A moment later he returned with a splitting wedge and a short-handled sledgehammer.
Of course we knew this would attract attention, but there was just no way Kevin could pry that hatch up with all the standing water. Also, this way, we could go in and offer him back-up if anything nasty came up out of that cellar. It only took Greg six or seven good hits to knock a hole in the frame.
Dark water gushed out onto the street along with an absolutely horrid stench. Perry, Steve, and I all managed to keep from puking only about three seconds longer than Meredith and Greg. All of us could see that, while many of the town’s zombie population had been dealt with by the looters, there were still plenty left.
A couple of hundred were moving in now from every direction. We told Kevin we’d have to hurry as we rushed into the puddle strewn room and helped him with the obviously water-swollen wooden square. A single, recessed metal handle was all he had to grasp, but Greg once more put the wedge to good use.
When the hatch finally gave way what we saw was about four inches of stairwell, and then water. That is until this hideously bloated face popped out. Hands grasped Kevin’s leg before we had managed to all back away. From that point everything happened so fast. Another set of blue, water pruned hands had Kevin’s other leg and had yanked him off his feet. His head thudded hard on the wet wooden floor causing him to just suddenly go limp. Before anybody could grab him he had been pulled halfway into the three-by-four foot opening.
Greg and I grabbed his arms just as more bodies began pushing up, crowding the space with arms, hands, and heads. One of the zombies took a chunk out of Kevin’s leg and he screamed in pain suddenly seeming to shake off the near-unconsciousness from his fall.
It was a hideous tug-of-war. Meredith moved to one side of the opening and brought Greg’s discarded sledge hammer down on the top of the skull of a gray haired lady who had just taken another bite out of Kevin’s right leg. Kevin sat up suddenly, jerking away from Greg’s and my attempts to pull him free. He kicked and set his hands on the lip of the opening to push himself back. That was when two more hands grabbed his right wrist and pulled him into the opening with a splash.