Unrest Read online

  “Jomo, you’ve got us,” Kamara said.

  “Yeah,” Ian agreed, “You can’t just be alone, especially not after...”

  “After both my parents and siblings died? All I want is to be alone.”

  “Please reconsider,” Klaus said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be safer with us.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe again. But I thank you my friends.”

  “We love you Jomo,” Xinga said.

  Jomo almost cried then. “I love you too. But please, go on without me. I’ll be okay. I promise.”

  They could see he had his mind made up.

  “At least place something behind the door to keep anyone from getting in,” Marina said.

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “We’ll miss you Jomo,” Kamara said.

  Jomo nodded.

  With that they left, embracing him goodbye.

  TWO MONTHS LATER

  It seemed that human contact had gotten scarcer, the road lonelier. They’d been fighting zombies for months, stopping in hotels that were still running, and some that weren’t. Meeting people who each had their own ideas about what to do, and how they wanted to go about living their lives. The dead walking were growing, the military and police surprisingly absent. The towns they went through had either become ghost towns or weathered the storm with small groups of survivors that stayed in fortified households. They went as far as North Carolina, not holding out much hope for remaining family members. All broadcasts were still gone. All the cell towers dead. They were surviving, looting abandoned stores, and sleeping in abandoned homes. But there was no place that felt truly safe. None of them could understand how it had gotten so bad so quickly. They remembered that day of school as if it were yesterday, when they first encountered the living dead. They’d grown stronger as a unit, all six of them, Jomo and Lupe left behind. They got better with their weapons. Killing zombies had become surprisingly easy, and they were rarely surprised by them. They knew to check any place they entered, but the zombies generally announced themselves with their groans as soon as they smelled living flesh.

  The group had begun switching cars and switching who rode with who and who was the driver. It was no longer Samir’s or Kamara’s cars, but the group’s cars, and they usually rode three to each car. Gas was getting scarcer as attendants left their posts and no tanker trucks came by to fill the bays with new fuel.

  “Look,” Ian pointed, stopping the car, the others stopping behind them, both vehicles windows rolled down so they could hear each other. “It’s a farm.”

  “I think we should probably avoid farms,” Samir said.

  “But they might have crops. Fresh vegetables, that sort of thing.”

  “If there were any mad cows they’re probably all gone now, having passed their sickness to the owners and dying,” Klaus said.

  “We should investigate,” Marina said.

  Samir gave up. “All right.”

  They got out of the cars and strode toward the farmhouse.

  The lights were out as they entered. The fields appeared devoid of animals. The house was paneled in wood from floor to ceiling. There was a table set in the center of the kitchen, soup that had long gone cold, moldy cheese, and rotten fruit, as if the residents had left in a hurry. Flies swarmed around the stinky remnants. They covered their noses, coughing.

  They heard clucking coming from outside the house. There was a wooden door inset with rusty steel hinges that creaked and a mostly glass outer door with steel springs that did the same. When opened they led out to a small yard. Boxed into steel cage pens were six chickens. They were extremely thin, malnourished, fed solely by whatever crawled in the limited patch of soil underneath their clawed feet; their thirst quenched only by the puddles left by the rains.

  Klaus shook his head. “Those poor unfortunate creatures.”

  “We should free them,” Samir said.

  They all agreed. They couldn’t find the keys to the cages; they were probably on key chains that the owners took with them. But they did find a pair of bolt cutters in a storage shed close by. Marina cut one side of the cage open until the chickens could shuffle their way out. “Hope you find some food there buddies.”

  “Speaking of,” Ian said, “We should see what they had left in their fridge. We’re getting kind of low on food.”

  “Wait,” Xinga said, pointing, “Noise. More animals.”

  “She’s right,” Kamara said. “Over there. It looks like a stable.”

  It was a stable, housing horses and pigs. They found three pigs in a pen. Two of them were already dead. The other was on its side, slowly dying.

  There were four horses in their stalls. Two had died, and the other two were greatly emaciated and barely standing.

  “Quick, bring water over from the house!” Samir said, as he unlatched the simple metal hook opening on the two stalls.

  Xinga and Marina ran to the house to find water. Samir smoothed one of the horses with his hand. “Poor girl. We’re going to do our best to help you.”

  “How do you know it’s a girl?” Ian asked.

  “Just a guess. I’ve been around horses before. My father used to take me to a horse ranch to ride them.”

  They fed the horses grain they found in the stable and filled their metal bowls with water which the horses drank ravenously. The remaining pig was too weak to even eat.

  “We should put the poor thing out of its

  misery,” Samir said.

  No one stepped up to do it.

  “I can’t,” Kamara said.

  “I’ll do it,” Samir said. “I’ve had to put animals down before.”

  He put one of the emptied feed bags over the pig’s head. It jerked and spasmed as Samir suffocated it, letting out a weak squeal. “I’m sorry friend.”

  The group looked away.

  The pig became still. “It’s done.”

  “What do we do with the horses?”

  “Release them?” Klaus suggested, “As we did the chickens?”

  “I don’t see another choice,” Samir agreed. “We can’t take them with us, and they’ll die on their own here. At least letting them go they’ll finish off the rest of the grain and go forage for food elsewhere.”

  “There are troughs over there,” Marina said.

  “Good, we can fill one with the remaining jugs of water, and the other with the rest of the feed. It should keep them for at least a few days; assuming they make it. They haven’t eaten or had water in at least a month.”

  They filled the troughs and then released the horses from their stalls. From there they could leave the stable once their provisions were gone.

  The two horses went to the water trough and slaked their thirst again.

  “With how dehydrated they must be the water might last the day. At least now they have a fighting chance.”

  A small garden away from the stables revealed what had been crops of corn, and lettuce and tomatoes on the vine, but they had grown rotten from under-watering and untilled soil. They were useless. The near completely consumed remains of beef and dairy cows were not too far from this small field, swarming with flies. Their sun-baked dried husks and innards left only a small lingering odor of rot, but it was enough to drive them away. Plus the likelihood they had succumbed to either Mad Cow Flu or starving zombies in itself made them want to steer clear. They went back to the farmhouse and gathered what food they could find for themselves to take on the road.

  The creaking of the springs on the outer back door alerted them they were no longer alone.

  “Someone’s here,” Marina said.

  “Someone, or something,” Ian said.

  “Should we make a break for it, or investigate?” Kamara wondered.

  “No,” Xinga said, “No please don’t.” Her vocabulary had gotten better.

  “It’s probably not a person. They would have knocked or spoken by now,” Samir said. “I say we finish filling up these sacks and leave.�
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  “Sounds good to me,” Xinga said.

  thirteen

  Jomo didn’t know exactly what day it was, but he knew he’d been in the convenience store for approximately two months. There was a calendar in the back store room. He was getting tired of being here, alone, going stir crazy without even the voices of humans on television. The microwave in the back room still worked so there was still electricity, but he didn’t know how many more cans of raviolis or Spaghetti-O’s he could eat. The snack aisle was nearly empty. He was stupid, stupid, stupid! He should have stayed with the group, but now there was no way to contact his friends, or find out where they went. He’d been in a bad place in his head, and hadn’t been thinking clearly, but the time and the distance from those events that had led him here, gave him clarity. There had been few people on this road; it was maybe every three or four days he saw headlights. Some pulled in, some didn’t. It seemed the gas tanks had emptied or dried up. A few had tried the doors, and left after they hadn’t opened. He stayed quiet and hid in the back when this happened until he was sure they were gone. But now it was time for him to leave.

  He didn’t know where he could go. He was in a gas station convenience store off of the highway, far off from other establishments, and he didn’t have any transport except for his feet.

  As he moved the metal desk from the back-room office he’d used to block the front door something pushed the door from the other side. He stayed still a moment. The door shook. It wasn’t someone knocking. They weren’t even trying the door

  knob. It was more frantic, desperate. Zombies! Just outside the front door. He struggled to move the desk back. They knew he was here. They could smell him. The pounding at the door became more insistent. The desk overturned.

  They can’t get in, can they? He moved away from the door and the desk. With only the emergency lights on he could see there were still more of them, outside the shop windows, and they could see him.

  “Oh my Lord, help me Jesus!”

  He had his spear with him, but he was alone, and he didn’t know how many of them were out there. If they got in there’d be no telling if he could fight them all off.

  It appeared that a crowd was forming outside the windows, all trying to get in. They began to beat at the windows, striking with loose fists. The windows rattled.

  They can’t break the windows, can they?

  His question was answered when the sheer force exerted on the glass began to cause a series of spider web cracks.

  “Oh no.”

  He backed away into the storage room, locking the door behind him. If they managed to break through the glass and this doorway they could only get in one at a time. He had a spear and he could hold them off, killing them one by one, like at the Battle of Thermopylae. It wasn’t the greatest plan, and he wasn’t sure if he’d fair better in the convenience store. There were several aisles he could hide behind and attack, but the aisles also had two points of entry and they could trap him. He decided to take his chances in the storage room.

  The sound of the glass shattering reached him moments before the door to the storage room started to vibrate. The undead began to pound on the wood frame, trying to get at him. They would break through, as they broke through the glass. It was only a matter of time. The metal shelving units that held supplies were bolted to the floors so he couldn’t prop them against the door. There was nothing but maybe an inch and a half of wooden plank between them and Jomo. And already the wood was beginning to splinter.

  The door shattered, pieces falling all around him. Jomo thrust the spear through the opening as the first zombie came through, jabbing it right between the eyes. He felt it plunge into the creature’s flesh, and again the tearing as he pulled the spear back. He did it again with the next, and the next, always aiming for the forehead. They toppled over each other as they each followed the one before, creating a pile. Soon they were crawling over one another and it was getting harder to pinpoint the head, and they were squeezing into the doorway, two at a time now, barely able to push through, the need for flesh overriding any reason.

  He was piercing them at a fever pitch now, to his left and right, howling at them, then swinging the spear and smacking into the sides of their heads. Though their bodies were in a heap, nearly forming a fortress, they kept slithering overtop the bodies, falling down the pile on his side, until several were at his feet and his sides. There were too many! This was a bad idea. And now he would die in this tiny store room. He stabbed the ones falling over, and the ones at his feet. Jomo was afraid they would fall on top of him now, and he wouldn’t have time to raise his spear. But then they stopped coming, though he could still hear them. There was another sound as well. A whacking noise that was like heads being struck. And the groans grew louder and more ferocious, as if they’d found another source to feed on. Jomo pushed through and climbed the pile.

  Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! The sound kept coming and then he could hear the skulls cracking, the bodies dropping. He made his way over the pile and he could see there was a girl among the undead, and though they surrounded her she was whirling around, hitting them with a long rounded wooden stick. Jomo believed it was called a Bo Staff. It was hard solid wood and she held it in the center bashing their heads in with both ends. They never even got close to her. It became a blur as if she were holding rapidly fluttering wings in her hands rather than a stick.

  Jomo was over the other side of the pile now, and there was some distance between him and the closest zombie. She had directed them away from him and was handling them herself now, but he had to help, so he began spearing the ones not in the range of her staff. He didn’t recognize the girl although she looked young. She was moving too fast, and he couldn’t see her face clearly, although the brown hair looked familiar. She wasn’t wearing her typical dress but a blouse and baggy jeans, but the open toed sandals gave her away. Only when all the zombies were dead, spread out around them, and she stopped could he be sure.

  “Lupe?” Jomo said.

  “Jomo!” she cried, “Fancy meeting you here!”

  They embraced.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She smiled. “I could ask you the same thing. I heard someone screaming, and I knew someone was in trouble. When I saw the pile up at the door I had to cause a distraction.”

  Jomo shook his head with disbelief. “No, I mean how did you get here? Weren’t you with family?”

  “I was,” she nodded sadly, “Little less than a month ago the zombies got in our house. Killed everyone. I survived.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Guadalupe looked away. “It’s the way things are now I suppose. Why are you here alone? What happened to the others?”

  “I left them to stay here. I too thought I’d be better off locked in one place. I lost my family as well. I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry for your loss too Jomo.”

  She looked at him, and down at the bodies. “So, you want to get out of here?”

  Jomo nodded emphatically, “Yes, very much so.”

  fourteen

  The mysterious banging at the backdoor of the farmhouse would have to remain mysterious, and although they’d decided it was almost certainly not human and possibly zombie, (although it could have been another animal), they decided it was not worth investigating. They made their way out the front door and back to their cars.

  In the back seat Klaus slid a white rag with rubbing alcohol up and down the blade of his sword, wiping off the blood and dirt and smoothing it to a clean polish.

  “You should probably find a good oil for the blade so it won’t rust,” Marina said, turning from the driver’s side.

  “What kind of oil?”

  “They make all sorts of oils for swords. But machine oil works.”

  Xinga looked at her Sai. “If you find, please let me know.”

  “I will,” Klaus smiled. “They’re stopping,” he said of the car ahead of them.r />
  Marina nodded. “They must see something we don’t.”

  They sat still, waiting for the others to move. Marina put the car in park.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” Klaus said.

  “It has to be them,” Xinga said.

  “Most likely,” Klaus agreed.

  Marina backed up, and moved the car to the left, to see if she could catch sight of the obstruction. There was a fog moving in that certainly wasn’t good

  for visibility.

  “Do you see anything?” Klaus asked.

  “Not a thing.”

  ***

  “What is it?” Kamara asked.

  Samir looked through the window. There was a heavy fog in the road ahead. Shadows moved in it. “I think it’s them,” Samir said.

  “Shamblers,” Ian said from the backseat. They’d taken to calling the zombies that because of the way they walked. Zombies began sounding too trite, too much in the realm of science fiction. Referring to their unsteady gait instantly elevated the threat in their minds. And the word had an eerie feel to it, as if they were not once human, but some diabolical alien race, some evil entity called forth- perhaps something from a Cthulhu Mythos.

  “Can you tell how many?” he asked.

  Both Samir and Kamara shook their heads. Samir stopped the vehicle.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Samir said.

  “I vote we kick some ass,” Ian suggested.

  “We don’t know how many there are. I say we head back the other way. The entire road could be blocked. There could be a hundred of them and we wouldn’t know.”

  “Fair point.”

  “Drive back the other way?” Kamara asked. Automated street lamps came on. “It’s getting dark. We have to decide.”