Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel (4 page)

I
had a classroom’s worth of Raspberry Pi’s in
the house that I was preparing to donate to the local middle school. The Pi is a
credit card sized full blown computer that was designed in England by a
charitable foundation seeking to teach kids about technology. They are easy to
program and consume next to no power. One of the things they are great at is
controlling other devices. For instance, a Pi can control relays on another
little board to turn lamps on and off. For every Pi I had, I had an eight
channel relay board to go with it.

Ruth Ann drilled a hole about the diameter of a pencil
in four shutters on the sides of the house, two each to the northeast and
southwest. I broke the laser diodes out of some laser pointers and presentation
remote controls. I soldered up new leads to their power pins. They take 3 volts
at less than a watt. Easy enough.

Ruth Ann just barely attached the laser diodes
inside the shutters. We would let the wind cause a little movement so the beams
didn’t just sit there. I ran speaker wire up to the roof and connected each
side’s pair of diodes to a Pi connected to a relay board. I wrote a little
Python program that caused the diodes to turn on for three seconds at a time at
random intervals.

The net effect was that it would look like there
were four shooters in the “windows” peering through the shutters. If the bad
guys were going to shoot at something, their first and maybe last shots might
be at solid concrete hidden by aluminum siding.

We tried to come up with a way of protecting the
greenhouse and solar panels. Coming up with nothing, we hoped to engage them
when they were close enough not to be able to see those vital but fragile
structures at all from ground level.

T
oday’s radio update brought two pieces of
international news. The Queen of England and Prince Philip had been killed.
Like her father during World War II, Elizabeth chose to stay in London during
her people’s greatest need. The Royal Family was safe within a bunker far below
the city’s streets. Someone in her household staff smuggled in a family member
who died and reanimated inside the Royal Apartments themselves. The whereabouts
of her successors were not immediately known. The United Kingdom would know a
state of interregnum not experienced since the 17th century.

The other news told that Canada had offered
blanket admission to all Americans provided they not transit the border at
established crossings. Crowding at the formal crossings resulted in massive
carnage from uncontrolled infection. Canadians and fleeing Americans were urged
to gather in small groups and use Canada’s vast expanses of emptiness as their
defense. The Canadian government moved to the large island in the Manicouagan
Reservoir. One asteroid killed the dinosaurs. Another saved the Canadian
command authority.

A
t three AM on Friday morning, (Day 16), Ruth
Ann saw the glow of headlights on McKenzie Road, an east west road that runs
past our neighborhood. There is a berm parallel to McKenzie lined with trees
shielding our development from the road but it was easy enough to see the glow
come to a stop and then go out.

The berm and its neighboring open space are about
twenty yards wide. Then, an east west road inside our development runs past our
block. That’s another ten yards. Finally, our corner house is set back on the south
by about thirty yards. Once clearing the trees on the berm, these guys would
have to cross more than forty yards of open ground with next to no cover lit up
by a full moon. If we had to be visited by armed looters we could be thankful
they were stupid armed looters.

A total of five men poked cautiously out of the
trees. A pair appeared just to the west of us, they’d try the front of the
house. A trio appeared just to the east. They’d try the back. Ruth Ann quietly
shifted over to cover the trio, I drew the pair. Each man carried a rifle. One of
mine was dressed in hunter’s blaze orange. He did not blend into the
background.

The others dressed in darker winter coats. They inched
closer. I put the P.A. system away earlier which was good because I was so
tempted to shout “We can see you, you know.” But I didn’t.

We waited until they reached our lawn. I hate
people on my lawn. Not that I care about the lawn itself as a body of grass.
For all I care it could be green painted asphalt. The thing is it’s my fucking
lawn and you don’t come on it unless you’re invited.

Like all “good” gunfights, in addition to surviving,
this one was over quickly.

I triggered the phony laser gun sights. One of
my guys dropped to the ground and one of Ruth Ann’s did as well. All five
rifles aimed at the first floor. I actually fired before Ruth Ann. I put the
red dot on the center of standing guy’s chest and didn’t hesitate. The view
through the red dot sight made it look a little like a video game. That’s how I
put out of my mind that I was squeezing the trigger of a real gun pointed at
real person. I breathed in, let a little out then squeezed the trigger. I felt
myself jerk in anticipation of the recoil.

I missed. But not by much, standing guy decided
right then he’d had enough and turned around running.

Ruth Ann’s hunting rifle had cycled twice while
I moved in slow motion. Two of her targets who had fired at the first floor
were dead with headshots. Only two targets remained between us.

Both lifted their rifles up to the second floor.
My guy was prone - it was hard for him to angle upwards. As he did, I got to
look him straight in the eye when I squeezed my trigger. One shooter left.

That one took a bite out of the wall a few
inches from its top demonstrating he had no idea we were firing through the
drainage ports at the floor of the roof. Ruth Ann made her hat trick.

And that was that.

R
uth Ann and I awoke in the late morning of Friday,
Day 16. We were still in our clothes sprawled out on the living room couches.
We hadn’t talked much about how we spent our night. We killed four people. Ruth
Ann looked into me and knew what I was thinking.

“Nobody forced them to come back, Doug. That
they were here at all is proof enough of their intent.”

“I know.”

“So none of this self-doubt and what ifs you
obsess on, OK?”

Maybe she didn’t know what I was thinking.

“That’s not it hon. It’s that, well, there are
four dead guys on our lawn. What the fuck do we do with them?”

“Oh… That is a good question. You got yours in
the head right? We won’t be seeing them walking around again, that’s good. We’ve
got that going for us.”

“How about dumping them in one of the houses
they broke into?”

“We can’t bury them. The ground is too hard for
us to dig in. Yeah, that would be good karma I suppose. What goes around comes
around.”

“Let’s get to it then. I’d rather throw up on an
empty stomach and not waste any food.”

First, we checked the security cameras. There
was no activity outside except some crows picking at the looters’ remains. We
watched for a few minutes anyway, cycling through the cameras one by one so we could
hear the output of their mikes. Just crow and wind noises.

We went to the garage. I tossed some garbage
bags in the car and manually raised the door for Ruth Ann to back the car out.
Ruth Ann moved the wagon over to the first body.
My
first body I should
say. It was the moron in the orange hunter covers.

Ruth Ann looked at the cadaver and said, “I’ve
seen this fucker before. He followed me out of Freddie’s gun shop the other
day. Freddie had said we lived in a bunker and this guy perked up.”

“Well, he found us. Sucks for him.”

Ruth Ann checked out his weapon and looked
through his pockets for anything useful he might have carried. We didn’t bother
looking at his ID. Looter J. Looter was enough ID for us. I worked a garbage
bag over the guy’s head. Ruth Ann said his rifle matched her .308 hunting rifle
caliber so we would be keeping it. Together we put the guy feet first most of
the way into the bed of our wagon.

I walked on to the group of three that Ruth Ann
had dispatched while she drove the car with its hatch still up. We were just
starting our work when the sound of heavy engines scared the shit out of us.

Looking up, a line of four Humvees was heading
right for us. Each had a soldier standing behind an M60 machine gun.

I’m stuffing a guy’s head into a garbage bag and
Ruth Ann has her hands in his pockets. There are two more dead guys next to us
and one more hanging out the back of our car. I was hoping Ruth Ann would say
“Let me do the talking.” But she didn’t.

T
he lead Humvee stopped near us. I watched with
dismay as two of the M60’s turned in our direction. A tired looking lieutenant
exited the Humvee’s passenger side. One hand rested above his undrawn side arm.
His other held a clipboard. I got even more nervous as clipboards can be more
dangerous than guns.

“Mr. and Mrs. Handsman?” he said half looking at
us half at his clipboard.

“Yes, that’s us. How can we help you?” I said
sounding like an idiot.

“I am Lieutenant Mancheski, Wisconsin National
Guard. Who are your friends?”

“Looters. They did those three houses
yesterday,” I pointed, “and came for us at three this morning.”

“I see,” he looked at the looted homes then at
the corpses. I could see in his face he was done thinking about three dead
looters.

“Mr. Handsman, sir, this is our last time
through the area. If you wish to come with us, we can escort you to the safe
zone. The number of walkers we are running into is increasing quickly. We
cannot protect you out here...” He nodded towards the bodies.

“Thanks for your offer Lieutenant. My wife and I
are committed to riding things out here at home. We’ll be fine.”

“Mr. Handsman, sir, you do know what is coming
right? You know what’s been going on?”

“We do. Maybe “riding things out” makes it sound
like we aren’t being realistic. We know what is coming. We want to be in our
own home when it gets here.”

“OK. I understand. I need you to sign this sir,
if you please.” I could see in his face he was done thinking about two crazy
homeowners too.

He handed me his clipboard. I removed my bloody
gloves and took the clipboard to read over. It was a waiver of liability.

Both Ruth Ann and I signed the waiver that said
we had refused the government’s offer of “limited liability” sanctuary and if
anything happened to us we couldn’t sue for damages.

When I had handed the clipboard back to
Lieutenant Mancheski he said, “Maybe you folks are making the right choice. There
are too many people at the airport already. There is talk of hordes forming in
the Twin Cities, Milwaukee and Illinois. How are we supposed to defend against
them?”

He looked exhausted and sad.

“It’ll be OK young man. Things will work out,”
Ruth Ann, the kindly woman who had just killed three guys, comforted the man
sent to rescue us.

We parted shortly after. The Lieutenant offered “free
haul away service” of our four unwanted guests. We did not volunteer the rifle
we already stowed in the car and the Guardsmen politely didn’t ask for it. Each
of the Humvees left with a mason jar of Ruth Ann’s homemade strawberry
preserves.

I
want to revisit and expand why Ruth Ann and I had
decided days ago that we would refuse every invitation to go for a ride. As I’ve
described before, it isn’t that we didn’t trust the government. We didn’t trust
our fellow citizens.

Why would we leave? Surrounded by concrete we
had more than 1200 square feet of solar electric panels on a flat parapet style
roof. Shielded by the parapet wall, we could be on the roof hidden from anyone
or anything on ground level.

The solar array fed battery storage in the
basement. Used judiciously, power was not a problem.

We are on well and septic. The water pump only
took 600 watts. We could top off the bathtubs, sinks and other containers each
day without killing our power budget. We use stored water rather than the taps
for routine usage.

Next to the solar panels, Ruth Ann kept a small
greenhouse useable all year round. She grew various greens, onions and a barrel
full of potatoes. These were hardy, resource efficient and mostly
self-sustaining crops.

We stored up a large amount of homemade canned
goods. We had all the survival food we recently purchased in addition to stores
we had accumulated over the years. A prudent California family keeps some
emergency food in case of earthquakes. A nervous California family keeps a lot
of emergency food in case of earthquakes.

The garage, front, back and sliding doors were
all commercial grade and set in steel frames. One too many break-ins
experienced as a child convinced me of the value of investing in doors that
would stand up to baseball bats. The first floor windows were fakes and the
upstairs windows had shutters and were out of reach.

If something can be used as a weapon, Wisconsin
had a dedicated hunting season just for it. We had three guns in the house, now
four, with plenty of ammunition. Ruth Ann was her high school’s varsity archery
team captain. We even had Ruth Ann’s brother’s black powder musket, (but with
no black powder, it would be useful only as a club).

With eight day / night security cameras around
the perimeter of the house, we had great ‘situational awareness.” The cameras
were hooked up to an SSD-based DVR. The whole system consumed less power than a
hundred watt light bulb. In fact, with regard to technology, we could be our
own big box store. Add tablets, WIFI, phones (the WIFI on them worked even with
cell service gone) to the Pi’s, we had an enormous low power information
processing capacity. I was not sure how all the IT would translate in this dead
new world but at least we’d be able to keep up our skills launching birds at
pigs.

We trusted each other, Ruth Ann and I, more than
we trusted a few thousand strangers. Inside our house, we had the opportunity for
self-determination. In a camp, we would be members of a herd. If this seems
nakedly arrogant, call us “flawed protagonists.” Every person who has ever
started or helped start a business suffers from the same flaw.