Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel

Get Off My L@wn:

How a Computer Geek and His Wife
Survived the Zombie Apocalypse

Perry S. Kivolowitz

Copyright © 2013 by PSK Intellect, LLC

This is a work of fiction. References to
place names serve only to advance a fictional account of a Zombie apocalypse.
None of the events in this novel have actually taken place.

All trademarks referenced herein are the
property of their respective owners.

I dedicate this work to my son Evan who pressed
me to reengage in the zombie genre and to my wife Sara for being all a spouse
should be and more.

And to George A. Romero.

I
am sorry for the people you lost.

The counselors say we “have to go on living.” I
wonder what the counselors really think, when they are alone and there is a
sound or a smell and the memories bite and claw and moan. Do they repeat their
own platitudes? Do they tell themselves to look on the bright side? Are they
comforted that things could have been worse?

As you begin reading this, as evidenced by the
fact that you even
can
begin reading this, take a moment to reflect on
that last self-evident cliché. Things really could have been worse.

There have already been many memoirs written by
survivalists and preppers. Some of these folks were down right tickled at the
opportunity to crush rotting skulls with mail order Zombie Spikes.

There have been books written by soldiers who
marshaled intense focus, fortitude and training to harness powerful weaponry or
the solitary brutality of their own fists. Certainly, without these folks, none
of us would be here.

Finally, there have been books written by
completely ordinary folks who found strength and resolve to overcome the most extraordinary
circumstances. These people are the true heroes.

Our story does not encompass the full sweep of
the global melt down. We stayed close to home. This is not a grand epic. This
is our account of a
great
tragedy writ
small
.

My wife Ruth Ann and I were not actively planning
for the apocalypse. We gradually eased into it. Ruth Ann is a product of no-nonsense
Midwestern farm stock. She has never taken shit from anyone. She brought a
natural tendency towards preparedness and self-reliance common to small town
America. I grew up in a rust belt city and was robbed, mugged and burgled so
many times that I was finished being a victim. I brought a natural tendency
towards worry and worshipped regularly at the altar of what-if.

Perhaps most importantly, I did not really like
people much to begin with.

B
efore we could build our “dream house”, we had
to do battle with a bunch of self-important pricks from the neighborhood
association called the Architectural Review Committee. We picked our
development because it was the most rural we could get while being new enough
to get optical fiber to the house. The country that invented the Internet was
finally catching up to Estonia (though we still lag far behind South Korea).

This part of Wisconsin is host to frequent
tornadoes.

I did not want to be the guy interviewed on TV,
head in hands, talking about how everything that was important to him was “gone,
all gone.” I wanted to be the guy next door to the guy whose house was gone,
all gone. I wanted to be the guy whose house was ‘miraculously untouched” by
the fury of nature.

I do not believe in miracles but I do believe in
Intelligent Design, as in, use some intelligence when you design a house in
downtown tornadoville.

The pricks on the ARC wanted desperately to
reject our house design and did so several times, much to the pleasure of our
architect. The ARC whined that the house would look too much like a bunker.
Each rejection served only to drive up our architect’s fees and piss me off.
Finally, we studied the neighborhood covenants closely and laid down the law to
the architect. The committee approved our house design because we left them no
way to reject it. We got our “bunker” by adding extra perennials, bushes, and
some “mature” trees. We had to add a crap load of aluminum siding we did not
need or want. On the ground floor, what were solid concrete walls were dotted with
real shutters where windows would normally be.

Folks from the neighborhood flapped their jaws
at how deep the foundation was being dug, “that’s a mighty big hole you got
there Doug.” They scoffed at the tie rod reinforcement of the framing and they
stopped talking to us altogether when they realized the tie rod reinforced
framing was not that at all. It was reinforcement for poured concrete exterior
walls. No, our neighbors did not like our house. Too damn bad for them I
thought.

It really did turn out to be too damn bad for
them because now they are “gone all gone.” All except for us and the neighbor
kid Ryan, who joined us for a while early on. He liked our house just fine.

I
made a hat full of money in Silicon Valley but
no, you never heard of me. I was perfectly happy to let some Nehru shirt
wearing wiener or snot nosed child dressed in black hog the camera. I was not
the “god-like founder” type. I was a hit man brought in by venture capitalists
when they needed somebody “to fully realize” the wiener’s “vision.” Four
progressively bigger paydays and I kissed the Valley goodbye not needing to
work again.

Being well off and having an eclectic set of
interests helped Ruth Ann and me survive the near end of humanity. Our mix of
mild paranoia and a well-developed cynicism definitely helped. To be honest, my
worldview was simply “People suck.” This turned out to be especially helpful
when, in addition to sucking, people started biting, clawing and tearing too.

Were it only me in this mess I would have been
out staggering on a long-term nature walk soon after the world went to shit. If
it is not computer related, I am only as handy as a telephone and a credit card.
I am Eva Gabor on Green Acres to Ruth Ann’s Eddie Albert. She made our Fortress
of Solitude possible.

O
ctober dawned brisk and beautiful. The foliage
had peaked early this year promising a cold winter. The local news bubbled with
stories of folks looking forward to the start of bow and gun-hunting season in
November, as was Ruth Ann. At the national level, it was the same shit
different year. Those with more power fucked those with less. Those with none thought
things were great never realizing how well and truly screwed they were.

Down in Madison the University was taking heat
again for their research on H7N9, the 1918 flu, Ebola and other virus lines they
never revealed they had. The Ebola research was supposed to have stopped back
in 2009 but who knows if it was. In the years since, researchers at UW were in
the news for publishing papers on how to tweak flu bugs to be more contagious
and deadly. They claimed that knowing what few mutations were necessary to “enhance”
the massively dangerous viruses would better prepare us should such mutation
happen in the wild. “Forewarned is forearmed” they argued.

In reality, the University had spent millions
building a first rate lab for some hotshot researcher they lured from some
other place. They were not about to close down their investment “just because”
the work might result in the end of the world.

Luckily, the flu bugs did not cause the end of
the world.

The combination of flu bugs and aggressive viral
meningitis (which they had not let on that they had) did.

In combining, much of the communicability of the
flu was lost. The virus could live for only a short time airborne and on
surfaces. Infection by proximity was a real potential. Transfer of bodily
fluids had a guaranteed outcome.

The researchers were good at their jobs. They
made a killer bug. Who said we couldn’t build anything in America anymore? The
lab facilities the UW built were as good as they said. They claimed the
facilities were idiot proof. Maybe they were.

They were not, however, “$15.10 per hour
Project-Assistant with one month on the job” proof.

The virus brought death after a mostly
asymptomatic incubation period long enough for those infected to disperse. In a
process, still not explained, reanimation occurred soon thereafter.

O
f all places, the first glimpse of what was to
come broke on TMZ. Some celebutantes were in Madison for an annual charity
benefit. There was an after-party at one of University Avenue’s rowdier student
bars. Madison and Wisconsin in general was great for bars. More bars than
churches here, and we have a great many churches.

Come bar time the street was empty with the exception
of folks with camera phones waiting for the celebs to exit. A kid (the lab
assistant) came staggering down the street, a common sight that raised no
eyebrows. He all but fell on one of the onlookers from behind and was filmed
taking bites out of her.

People scattered but not without keeping their
phones pointed at the bloody scene. After all, they were sure this would “go
viral” and had visions of sugarplum fairies and zillions of virtual dollars
dancing before their eyes. They were right about it going viral of course but I
doubt anyone would be around to cash let alone issue the virtual checks.

The MPD was quickly on the scene. The “drunk”
ignored police orders and warnings, tearing into the girl with teeth and nails.
Finally distracted from his twitching victim by the shouting police officers,
he made a move towards them. One cop fired his Taser. The drunk convulsed while
the Taser’s charge lasted but instead of remaining inert, got back up
immediately. The cop fired the Taser’s second load. Again, the drunk got back
up as if nothing had happened.

Staggering at a patrolman with blood smeared
arms outstretched and blood running down his chin onto his Sconnie sweatshirt,
the cops put one shot each into the drunk’s center of mass. The drunk went down
and was still. One officer crouched low to feel for a pulse and reported he felt
none. While still crouched, the drunk opened his eyes; he grabbed the cop’s
hand and yanked it quickly to his bloody mouth. The cop screamed from the pain
of the vicious bite. The other cop fired into the drunk’s head.

That was the footage that showed up on TMZ.
After snarky comments about the cannibal missing out on a splitting headache in
the morning, the segment closed with an exclamation of heartfelt thanks that the
bimbo famous for being famous was safe. Thank heavens.

The widespread availability of several videos of
the event immediately brought breathless online comments that the “dude’s a
zombie, bro.” Unlike any fictional account of the zombie apocalypse that I have
ever read, video of the first biting victim was globally available within twenty-four
hours of the event. It did not make any difference.

B
y that Friday (Day 3), there were reports
around Dane County of similar bizarre behavior. The lab assistant had already
spread the virus by aerosol to other students and academics. Those exposed to
the police officers involved in the first recorded biting incident also spread
the bug before they too expired and reanimated to bring mayhem by tooth and
nail.

A community Fish Fry at a Cross Plains church
became a scene of bewildered terror when a person in bloody and torn clothing
entered the parish hall and began viciously biting parishioners. Similar events
took place at a Fall Concert at a middle school in Waunakee, a high school
varsity football game in Sun Prairie and an indie movie theater in Madison.

By the following Monday (Day 5), all schools
(including the UW where this all began) in Dane and surrounding counties were
closed. Reporters from all the major and not-so-major news organizations were
flooding into Madison to report on events first hand. There were Internet-based
reports of similar odd events taking place in a number of cities around the
country and world.

The next day, Tuesday (Day 6) the Governor
banned all forms of public assembly in southern Wisconsin.   In protest, fourteen
Wisconsin state legislators made public denouncements from an undisclosed
location believed to have been in Illinois. We now know that one of these
legislators was the local source of infection near the Wisconsin / Illinois
border.

The Governor called out the National Guard in
Dane County, declaring it a disaster area. By nightfall broadcasts from
downtown Madison, right outside the ritzy hotel where the press was staying,
showed the National Guard firing into a crowd of advancing bloody disfigured
people. After warnings not to let small children watch what was about to come,
bullets could be seen in slow motion entering and exiting persons who did not
even falter. The segment closed with Guardsmen in violent hand-to-hand combat
as strange attackers overran their positions.

On Wednesday (Day 7), the international news
reported major uncontrolled outbreaks throughout the world.