Pandora: A Novel of the Zombie Apocalypse (11 page)

Everyone gathered around and sat close. Helen started to sniffle.

Sean went over to them and said, “I was on the roof. This time the lights are out all over. As far as I could see, there was nothing.”

“I think this time they’re out for good,” surmised Henry.

Mariam looked around and said, “We should eat everything in the fridge first. Once it gets warm in there, it’ll start to go moldy.”

“Good thinking, Mariam,” remarked Sue.

“Now it
is
the end of the world,” murmured Helen, head hung low.

“You know,” Mike piped up, “we should be starting the cars and letting them run for a few minutes. If we don’t, the batteries may die. If we have to make a getaway and the SUVs don’t start, we’re fucked.”

“Getting out to do that is going to be tricky,” said Sean.

“I don’t think we have any choice,” answered Mike.

Everyone started talking at once and adding suggestions. Sean sidled up to Malik. “Hey, Malik,” he said. “Can you convert the M15s to fully automatic?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” replied Malik, looking at him.

“Why not?”

“Unless you’re very familiar with the weapon and know fire control, the tendency for beginners is to just hold down the trigger instead of doing short three-round bursts. With the barrel rise, you’ll wind up firing the full clip into the ceiling.”

Jack put his hands out, and everyone quieted down. “My brother Tommy is in the army. He’s down in Florida, and he and the rest of the men are going to my dad’s house in Boca. It’s in a small gated community, and it’s walled in. I think we should give some serious thought to heading down there.”

“No, I don’t want to leave here,” cried Helen.

“Yeah, it’s too soon for that,” agreed Sue.

Henry nodded. “We won’t make it. Hell, we’re afraid to go out and start our cars in the driveway. What are we going to do about gas and food?”

“There are gas stations along the way,” said Jack, a little hurt at the negativity.

“If the power is off all over, the pumps will be shut down. No gas,” Mike said.

“Besides,” chimed in Naomi, hoping to disarm the growing tensions, “we’re from Jersey. We don’t pump our own gas!”

Everyone chuckled at that, and the intensity dissipated. There were a few quiet individual conversations, but people mostly settled into their own contemplation of the situation.

Jack, a little miffed, went back to his chair. Mike got up and walked over to him.

“Is Tommy there now?”

“No,” Jack said softly. “He should be there in a few days.”

“Let’s wait and see what his evaluation of the situation is. If it’s good, he and his men could secure the compound and make sure it’s a hundred percent safe. Then we can talk about it again, okay?”

“Okay,” Jack said with a sigh. He smiled as they bumped fists, and Mike walked away.

Mike knew Jack really wanted to see his brother again. He thought if it worked out, it might not be a bad idea. But right now it didn’t warrant getting worked up about.
Too soon
, he thought.

The next couple of days went by slowly. Linda found a battery-operated radio the boys didn’t even know they had. They listened to the very few stations still broadcasting, every afternoon at three; they did this to extend the battery life.

With the shades always closed and no lights, the house became very gloomy. A pall settled over everyone.

14

T
he world had settled into a new way of life. Civilization was hunkered down in a number of almost-isolated settlements. Having no communications, and with its nuclear-power plants experiencing meltdowns, Asia’s civilization was reduced to a nonsustainable level. The few survivors left now were hit with other, more earthly catastrophes. Lack of potable water and poor sanitation led to massive outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and other plagues. An outbreak of Ebola hit the Congo and Uganda in Africa. It soon spread to the surrounding countries of Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, and Angola. Between Pandora and Ebola, the Dark Continent was a no-man’s-land of death and zombies.

Russia went dark. Eastern Europe and the Balkans were almost sans life. What little there was mainly consisted of small paramilitary groups crisscrossing the region, looking for refuge; meanwhile the undead were whittling their numbers down.

Western Europe fared a little better. The military and NATO relentlessly bombed and strafed the undead in droves. The civilian population unfortunately suffered greatly for this. Sometimes it was impossible to discern zombie from human from the air, and both died in large numbers.

South and Central America were almost lost. The only people who could protect themselves were those with a lot of money. They hired
armed guards and retreated to their compounds in the mountains. The rest of the people were on their own. They did not last for long.

The United States and Canada were having some success with the base-jumping tactic of cleansing small areas at a time and using them as jumping off points for the next operations, but not enough to render it a huge success. The more populated the area, the harder this was to accomplish. Sometimes the sheer number of the walking dead overwhelmed the soldiers.

Australia was the only country that seemed to have any success. Because the interior, central region of the island continent was so unpopulated, the Aussies, like modern-day Pied Pipers, took to sending sound trucks to the outskirts of population centers and playing loud music to lead the masses of undead to the unpopulated areas. There they were bombed by the Royal Australian Air Force. This was a slow process but seemed to be working.

15

S
ean put down the empty can of baked beans. He loved baked beans, even cold, but didn’t like how thirsty they made him. Now, as much as he wanted to chug down his bottle of water, he couldn’t. Everything was rationed closely. With more zombies around now, everyone dreaded making another supply run. Yesterday a group of them went over the fence to the house behind their yard. Then they tried the house on its right. There they ran into a whole zombie family: father, mother, and two daughters.

Either someone had been bitten, or one of the family members who was previously infected had hid. Either way now the whole family was undead together. The raiders got lucky in that they smelled the zombies before they saw them. They retreated out the rear door just as the four ghouls entered the kitchen. After running across the yard, they hopped the fence just as two more came from around the side. Mike, watching from an upstairs window, saw them all moaning. Fortunately none of the zombies saw the raiders go over the fence. The yard was now crowded with zombies, but they were just standing there.

As a safety precaution, they now kept most of their supplies stored near the back door. Also everyone had prepared a bug-out bag with essential medicines, toiletries, and extra clothes. In case they were detected, they wanted to be ready to leave in an instant. The guns were there too.

Henry had brought along a bag from the hospital. Inside were antibiotics, a surgical kit, anesthetic, and gloves. He was sitting at the dining room table, organizing his instruments. It must have been the third time he had done this since he had arrived at the house, but the routine helped calm him.

Squinting at his surgical tools, he realized that in the darkened room, he really couldn’t see clearly. Leaning over behind him, he lifted a corner of the shade. There were no zombies around the side of the house, so he raised the shade a quarter of the way up. Now he could at least see. He figured he needed only five more minutes.

Linda and Carol were scouring the basement, looking for rubber hoses. Sean knew they would need tubing to siphon gas from other cars. They probably could use the hoses to access the storage tanks in the rear of the gas stations as well. Even if they did find any, they didn’t know if they’d be long enough. Still, knowing how important they were, they tore the basement apart looking.

Sean was back up on the roof with Jack. Looking around, he said to his friend, “Seems like there are quite a bit more of these undead fucks around today.”

Jack looked over at the big fire still raging, and in fact spreading, in Passaic. “Maybe they’re coming from there,” he said, pointing at the smoke and orange flames. “Maybe they’re trying to get away from that fire.”

“Good possibility,” agreed Sean.

Jack glanced down, observing that the zombies were not only in the street but also walking all over everyone’s lawn and trampling flower beds.

“Hey, girls!” Naomi called down the basement stairs. “When you come up, bring a hammer.”

“You aren’t going to hammer something and make noise, are you?” Malik said as he passed by.

“Yeah, right,” said Naomi, annoyed. “Do you think I really look that dumb? It just dawned on me that we might need one for something if we wind up on the road.”

“Um, good thinking,” he said.

“Well, your approval just means
sooo
much to me,” she said, dripping sarcasm.

The close quarters they were living in were starting to take a toll on everyone’s patience.

Linda moved a box in an unused corner of the basement. A cloud of dust rose up, and she coughed, trying to wave it away. With her hand covering her nose and mouth, she looked into a wooden box underneath. There, lying at the bottom, was a collection of rubber hoses all tangled together. She was about to reach in and pull them out when a black spider crawled over the top.

“Aaah,” she gasped. “I hate spiders.”

Carol came over and looked inside the box. The spider raised up its two front legs at her. She stood up with a disgusted look on her face.

“That’s so gross,” she stated. Then she stepped aside and kicked the box over.

Out ran the spider, and she quickly stepped on it. She reached down and tipped the box upside down. Lightly jostling it, she lifted the box and threw it aside. The two women kicked the hoses around a little to make sure there were no more surprises. Then they grabbed them up and, grinning from ear to ear, ran upstairs to show everyone their find.

Walking out of the basement and into the living room, Linda and Carol held out their jiggling rubber hoses and exclaimed, “Hey, look. We found them.”

Mike, Naomi, and Malik looked on, smiling.

“Great!” extolled Mike.

“You two are lifesavers,” Malik said, smiling.

The two momentary heroines basked in the glow.

“Where’s Sean?” Linda asked, looking around.

“He’s on the roo—” started Mike, but Linda already had turned around and headed for the dining room.

“Sean, look what we found,” she said, walking in. She saw Henry sitting there, packing up his surgical kit. Her eyes traveled over his shoulder and focused on the window behind him. Involuntarily Linda let out a scream.

Looking in were two zombies, a man and a woman.

The male zombie had a beard and a large cut on his mottled forehead. The woman was naked, her hair bloody and matted. Her left breast was missing, and a gore-soaked hole remained. Upon seeing Linda scream, they both returned savage snarls at her. They then slapped their hands on the window, trying to get in. A rapidly accumulating smear of blood and bodily fluids formed on the pane.

Henry jumped up, startled. In a belated effort to hide, he pulled down the shade just as Mike and the others ran in. “Are you fucking crazy?” Mike yelled.

Sean and Jack heard the pounding and, seeing the other zombies stop and look, quickly left the roof and ran to the first floor. They got there just after Mariam and Sue ran in.

Mike went over to the window and, peering through the side of the shade, gasped. “Oh, shit. Here come the rest of them.”

16

T
he pounding increased as more hands joined in the assault.

“We have to leave,” Sean yelled. “We have to leave right fucking now!”

Everyone was scrambling, grabbing gear and supplies. Jack and Malik went out the back door and sidled over to the parked SUVs. Looking around the corner, Jack saw the zombies on the street heading for the other side of the house.

He turned to Malik and said, “Okay, the driveway is clear. We have a very small window of opportunity here. Let’s load the cars fast.”

They ran back, and everyone started a bucket line, handing off the food, water, and supplies to Jack and Malik, who hurriedly stuffed them into the back of the vehicles. They were moving swiftly when they heard the first zombie hit the front door. Knowing there wasn’t much time, they stepped up their pace even more. They finally succeeded in loading up all three SUVs. The pounding at the front grew as more and more zombies mounted the front porch.

“All right,” shouted Sean, “everyone get into the cars, and let’s go.”

As the group hurried down the back stairs and headed for the cars in the driveway, the first ghoul rounded their side of the house. Just then Mariam stopped and looked around. “Where’s Helen?” she asked, panicking.

Puzzled, they all swiveled their heads around. Naomi’s eyes widened as she said, “Oh, no. Helen went up to her room earlier. She wanted to take something and go to sleep.”

Malik called out, “I’ll go! Keep the zombies away from the cars.” He looked at Sean. “If you find you can’t wait any longer…just go.”

Then he turned and ran back inside.

Mike lifted his M15 and fired a shot at the zombie coming for them. The round hit it in the upper chest. The creature jerked then kept on coming. Mike took a deep breath, aimed, then fired again. This time he hit the zombie in the bridge of the nose, and the ghoul collapsed in a heap. Jack joined Mike as the next zombie came off the porch toward them.

Malik raced to the staircase and, grabbing the banister, stopped his skid and pulled himself up the stairs. He ran down the second-floor hallway and burst into the room Helen shared with Carol.

She was groggily sitting up. “Whaaa? Whazzat noise?”

“Come on, Helen. We’re leaving,” grunted Malik, as he wrestled her up to her feet. “We have to go now.”

“Go? No, I d’wanna go…” Helen tried to sit down again.