I set my guitar down and drew the long, slender, three-foot blade I carried on my back. One quick thrust through the right eye socket, and I was back playing guitar a moment later. I still think that just for a moment, something in that thing’s brain remembered music, remembered its humanity. But, instinct always wins.
Tuesday, April 29
Town meeting today. It seems that after a good look at the video shot, a full-scale run on Opportunity, WA is going to happen. Because of the size of this run, we are going in in teams of four with five deuce-and-a-halfs, the fuel tanker—for possible refilling—and they want to use one of the RVs escorted by a pair of Hummers to try and extract those people. We roll off May 1st.
Wednesday, April 30
Meredith came to see me today. She said she had something she wanted me to see. Never one to refuse a pretty girl, I went.
I didn’t even recognize Joey when I first saw him. He was sitting in a circle with several other children with a notebook scribbling furiously as Tim was writing math problems on the huge dry-erase board. It was hard to believe that this was the same frightened child who would not step a foot outside back at the old complex.
We went back to my place and had lunch, which I must say still feels very surreal knowing what is going on out in the world. We talked about how she doesn’t really feel like she fits in. Other than Grace, who is a leader in political sense but does not leave the compound, and Snoe, who doesn’t talk to anybody and never leaves her place except to go out on missions, most of the women here are—in Meredith’s words—girly. They are care takers and nurturing types that don’t leave the compound other than to go to the garden. Even Samantha had balked at Mission sign-ups. Instead, she is a regular on kitchen detail, (everybody eats dinner together in the meeting hall as a community) and the vehicle maintenance team.
We spent the day talking and eventually shared some of our personal stuff prior to the epidemic. I learned that she had her own fitness studio and had been engaged. Her boyfriend was an EMT, he died early on. She had a sister who was a dancer on Broadway and a brother who was a cameraman for a cable news channel. He was working in the Middle East with some army unit.
I told her about my failed marriage, my daughter, and my band. I told her about being a newspaper delivery guy and living a simple, no-frills life which was enough for me.
We drank a whole bottle of wine and most of a second as we told funny stories. At some point, she kissed me. Now, she is asleep beside me, the moonlight shining on her milky-white skin. Occasionally she stirs when the rumble of distant thunder echoes. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but tonight I am going to sleep, comforted by the warm feel of her body nestled to mine, skin-on-skin. If I wake in the morning and she is gone, so be it. But for tonight...
* * * * *
Chapter 5
Thursday, May 1
For now...Opportunity lost.
We are being deluged by rain that has everybody staying inside. On the positive side...Meredith was still here this morning. I can hear the rain pounding the roof, and the sound of thunder rolls into our little valley, sometimes causing the windows to vibrate.
It is odd, walking around this house...my house...wearing a pair of clean black jeans and a baseball jersey from some city league sponsored by “Hank’s Transmission”, listening to The Planets suite by Holst on a boombox CD player, sipping a cup of hot tea with a dash of honey. Stranger still is seeing this little redhead reclining on the couch reading The Time Traveler’s Wife by Niffenegger, wearing Capri pants and one of my flannel shirts.
It’s almost like the past four months never happened. I know I must enjoy it while I can, things change fast...and usually for the worst.
Friday, May 2
Day two of the torrential rain, thunder, and lightning. Less than half of Irony came to dinner last night. Grace and her son, Derrick, went door-to-door today requesting everybody be at dinner tonight. She feels that isolation might be too much “alone time” for some folks. It seems an elderly man named Boyd Garrett hung himself sometime yesterday.
I thought back to my time alone in Hangman Creek Tavern. How close had I come to giving up? I guess there is a lot of healing to be done. But the question is…when will there be time? Will these things eventually fall down and stay dead when they run out of food? And can we outlast them here in our little bastion of humanity? Will they rot to the point of no longer being mobile? Some of them have lost much of their clothing, while others haven’t. But truthfully, I’ve seen no sign of the bodies wearing down in similar fashion. These things might never go away.
Damn.
Saturday, May 3
Today, a group of us decided that, weather-be-damned, we had to at least try for those folks at that Wal-Mart. If nothing else, we could see if they left any indication that they even wanted our help.
Snoe, Meredith, Larry Bonn, Derrick Arndt, and I climbed into an RV and headed out early this morning. We came in from the south as dawn cut through the dismal gray enough for us to actually see past twenty yards. What we saw…well…none of us would have ever thought mankind could continue to find new ways to degrade itself.
Thousands of zombies have flooded into the area…lured by living humans dangled from five helicopters. I have no idea who could think of such a thing, but having seen what was happening in Spokane, I have no doubt that if Captain Dahl is still in command at the Air Force base, this is his handiwork.
Using the natural topography of the Spokane Valley, he is herding the zombies using the carrot-on-a-stick approach. While this has likely cut back on the dangers in Spokane, every other small outpost is now under siege.
We can see the folks we came to rescue. They do in fact have a huge S.O.S. banner hanging, along with what looks to be a huge canopy set up with “Save us!” painted on it. There are, from our best count, seventeen people, all on the roof. It is obvious that the zombies have gained entrance and chased them from the inside to where they now wait. Unfortunately, the crowd outside is at least twenty deep at the thinnest point.
This undead exodus brings a new concern; if our sanctuary is discovered by the Spokane powers-that-be that are seemingly bent on control for whatever the reason, would they seek to have us overrun? Or, are they simply attempting to clear their territory, the City of Spokane, albeit with no concern for the few survivors who may be clinging to a dwindling strand of hope.
We returned to Irony with the news. Grace has called for a meeting tomorrow of all residents over age fifteen. This should be interesting
Sunday, May 4
I have to hand it to Grace. She does not miss a thing. After hearing our report, it is obvious that she is seeing the possibility of the undead swarming down into our valley. She asked for volunteers to try and scout out two possible locations for us to fall back to. The first is near a town called Thompson Falls, Montana off of Prospect Creek. Supposedly there is a militia survivalist outpost nearby. North of that, some off-shoot religious sect reportedly set up in a very rugged area near the Noxon Reservoir off of a tributary that feeds into Trout Creek.