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Thread: [M] What Was Lost

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    Default [M] What Was Lost


    It's been three days since the outbreak happened. There's been no "all clear" call from anyone. I've stayed inside like the last warnings. I've drawn the curtains closed, and I don't dare turn the TV or radio up too loud. They responded to sound. Maybe smell. Sight, obviously.

    I turned on the TV in my bedroom and switched to Triple-N. It was about the exclusion zone, which I was unfortunately trapped inside of. The government was confirming "no fatalities from the infection." What a crock of... Yeah, that. Protests were being held outside of the zone, demanding that they be let in or questioning why phones and internet have no signal inside and around the zone. I switched the channel to Turbo. They were interviewing some celebrity I'd never heard of. They shared a moment of concern for people like me inside the zone, and then on to the damn movie she was in and how she prepared for the nude scenes. I felt insulted. I turned off the TV went downstairs to the kitchen.

    I lived alone, and some of my neighbors asked me why I paid so much for my big house when I live alone. I like the space. I made breakfast out of perishables, sausage patties and toast. I decided to go outside for the first time. Of course, it wasn't safe out, so I needed a weapon. I didn't feel quite safe enough with a knife, but I decided to make a little knife holster out of some Velcro straps and strapped one to my thigh. I grabbed a frying pan. Heavy cast-iron, would no-doubt put a hurtin' on one the infected if I had to fight one.

    I went back upstairs and peeked out all of the windows for a few seconds and decided on which neighbors to visit. I ran back downstairs and peeked out the front door window before I opened it slowly. Everything looked clear so far, so I first checked the perimeter around my house. No infected on my property (at least, not at the time), so I went next door. I knocked on the door several times, and then went around back, peeking into each window as I went. A good way to get myself shot. I thought.

    The door to the tool shed in the back yard was open. "Hello?" I called. And so came my first encounter with one of the infected. He shambled towards me, blood covering his face and neck. The clothes he wore bore some blood stains as well. But then I noticed the most horrifying thing about him. He had a bullet wound in the center of his neck. He should be dead. No, he was dead. A zombie. I inched towards him as he shambled towards me. He let out a sick hiss as he opened his mouth and put his arms out. I let one hand off my frying pan and pushed his arms to the side and hooked my leg behind the zombie's and swept it out from under him. I slammed my frying pan into his head. The blow should have instantly pacified a normal person, further reinforcing my assumption that he really was undead. I hit him again, but the blow was poorly aimed and I hit him in the jaw. I knocked some teeth out and he had no reaction. I hit him again, this time his skull caved in and his arms stopped grabbing at me.

    The first zombie I ever killed was one of my neighbors. I knelt next to the corpse for a few seconds as the knowledge sank in. Then a new concern came over me. His wife. I found the back door unlocked. I set the frying pan on the porch and drew my knife before creeping in. I went room to room, not speaking a word. In the dining room, my neighbor lay dead. Blood was spattered against the artwork, and a bullet shell was on the floor. Her arm had a bloody bite mark on one arm and a pistol in her other hand. There was an exit wound in the back of her head. She shot herself after being bitten. I almost threw up right there. I went upstairs. Room by room I went, checking every door. There were no others in the house.

    Something had temporarily numbed me. I took a pillow case and loaded it with medical supplies from the bathroom cabinet. In the downstairs closet, there were a few winter jackets which I decided I'd come back for after grabbing all the food I could. One cupboard had a hammer and several boxes of nails. I made a mental note of them and kept taking food and water. I unlocked the front door and took my bag of loot. Oh God. "Loot." Three days into this thing and I was looting! But what if that was life now? What if, to keep on living, I had to kill and loot? I'm a wildlife ecologist. All life must adapt or die. Adapt to survive. I thought. So that was it. I was going to stop being a civilized member of a society that seemed to have stopped existing in the exclusion zone.

    Set by Karma

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    The next hour or so was spent going to and from my neighbor's house. In my closet I found a hiking bag that I'd forgotten about, and it helped speed the collection process up. I got hungry going back and forth, and had an apple from the neighbor's fridge while I kept stuffing my loot bags with non-perishables. The whole time I looked over my shoulder every few seconds, wondering if there was another zombie, or if another neighbor had come to investigate what I was doing. Thankfully, I was alone while I worked.

    Once I was confident I had all the food I could take from the house, I went to another neighbor's home. I figured it wasn't worth running the risk of being interrogated at gunpoint by someone because I was looting a house that no one lived in anymore. I knocked on the door a few times. After about a minute with no response, I knocked again. I tried the doorbell. "Who's out there?!" my neighbor yelled. I was sure he had his shotgun with him, so I wasted no time identifying myself. "One second." I heard the door unlock, and it squeaked open. "Hurry up and get in here." the man commanded. Once I was inside, the door was immediately shut and locked again. I noticed that, like at my house, all of the windows were covered.

    "Who is it, dad?" a young voice called from the living room. "One of the neighbors," the father answered. "Stay with your mom while I talk with him." he continued. He beckoned me to follow him to the basement. Once we were settled in his man-cave, he began by offering me a beer. I politely declined. "So why'd you come over today?" he asked, "Hardly a good time for a social call." I looked down at the floor when I whispered, "Ben and Kathy are both dead." The man sitting across from me looked shocked, which was understandable. "How?" he asked. "I think Ben bit her, and... She shot herself." The man urged me to go on and asked me why I thought Ben did it. "He was covered in blood from the mouth down. And... There was a bullet hole in his neck, and he was trying to bite me. Ben was dead and still walking." I answered, trying to keep my voice down. I was asked what I did when I saw that Ben was dead. "I hit him with a cast-iron frying pan a couple of times. He had hardly any reaction until his skull caved in and he stopped moving." The man across from me stood up and went upstairs. I followed him. "We're going over to Ben and Kathy's, we'll be back in a few minutes." my neighbor announced to his family. He was right behind me when we left, and he made sure to lock the door.

    "How long ago did it happen?" I was asked. "A little over an hour ago." I answered. He went into the house. I didn't try to stop him, though I wondered if I should have. I was on the defensive for a good few minutes as he interrogated me why I looted all the food. I swore I'd take some over to his house. I was told my actions were inexcusable, but I had to wonder what if my actions were the wisest ones? I lost focus on his voice as I kept playing out scenarios to make me a not-guilty party. It continued until he demanded that I help him bury the bodies. In the tool shed, there were several shovels. I couldn't say no, I felt awful about what had happened to Ben and Kathy, and what I'd done to Ben, or whatever the thing was that looked like him.

    My neighbor went back to his family before we started digging to explain that he needed to help the neighbors with something and he'd be back in a few hours. Together, we made short work of digging the graves behind the tool shed, and respectfully lowering the wrapped-up corpses into the graves. We'd agreed to not speak of it unless it was unavoidable. I left a pillowcase full of food on my neighbors doorstep before I set about to taking the other items on my looting list, the parkas, the nails, the hammers, and whatever other things I thought I could use from Ben's house. I sincerely hoped that I would have to regret looting, rather than be glad that I'd prepared. If I had to be glad that I prepared, it meant that it really was the end...

    Set by Karma

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    "Alex?" I called as I knocked on his door with the pillow case full of food I'd promised him. It was getting late in the day, with the sun beginning to set. I'd hit Ben's fridge for dinner and go back home to watch the news and hope that things were improving. "Thanks." Alex said as he opened the door and took the pillow case from me. "Yeah. I'm gonna watch Triple-N for any updates, so maybe we should watch different channels or something to make sure nothing slips by us?" I suggested. "Our TV is out, but we'll listen to the local radio and see how things are going inside the zone. We meet up again around, say, nine tomorrow morning?" Alex said. I agreed and went on my way.

    When I was confident that no one was watching, I snuck over to Ben's house to take whatever frozen and/or refrigerated foods I felt like having for dinner. The fridge held a pizza that had barely been touched before Ben and Kathy died. I smuggled it over to my house to microwave a few slices and hid the rest away in my fridge. Once I had my dinner made I went up to my bedroom to watch the news. I got home later than I wanted to and the news had already started, but was just getting to the exclusion zone.

    "As we're wrapping up day three of the quarantine we still don't have a lot of information as to what's going on over there, aside from the fact that the military is increasing its presence to ensure that nobody enters or leaves the exclusion zone, in fact, one of our field reporters got in trouble when he tried to sneak in with a concerned person who apparently resided within the exclusion zone before the quarantine went up. We have no video but captured some pretty clear audio so let's take a listen to it." the news anchor droned on. Finally the screen went dark in a large rectangle while retaining blue borders around the TV screen, with white subtitles in the black box.

    "Driver, lemme see your hands!" a soldier yelled. "My wife's in there, are you seriously going to tell me I can't make sure she's okay?!" the driver of the vehicle yelled back. "Lemme see your hands, I will count to ten, if I do not see your hands I will open fire on you!" He sure is being aggressive about it, since this same station reported that there have been no fatalities in the zone. "Passenger, lemme see your hands!" another soldier yelled. "I'm a Triple-N repor-" the reporter was cut off by the soldier that had yelled at him, "Don't care, lemme see your hands or I will fire on you!" A few more tense seconds passed, "Passenger! Exit the vehicle slowly!" the soldier yelled. The sound of the door opening was followed by feet on gravel. "Passenger! Step away from the vehicle and get on your stomach!" Just then the audio cut out, but not before one could hear the truck engine rev.

    Holy crap. That guy's dead. I thought in reference to the driver. Obviously the government was withholding information. I switched to another news channel, and they were reporting the full story. The headline read "Man killed while trying to enter the exclusion zone. Reporter arrested" I wanted to turn the TV off, but I couldn't because I had to deliver information to Alex the next morning. By the time the news was finished with "we poor souls in the exclusion zone" my pizza had gotten cold, and it was dark out. I was too scared to go down and microwave the pizza again. I ate it cold and drank room-temperature milk. Not my best night. Of course, it was only going to get worse in the hours to come...

    A helicopter woke me up at two in the morning. I peeked outside my window and saw a searchlight scanning the neighborhood. And as it went, I watched it illuminate human forms. No sane person would be out at that time of night with whatever disease was going around. Those government bastards attracted a bunch of zombies to my neighborhood! I swore under my breath for the several minutes that the helicopter hovered over the neighborhood. For all I knew, Alex, his family, and I were the only living people alive in the area, and that damn chopper just put us all in peril. When the chopper left, I watched some silhouettes follow it, but others lingered. "Dammit!" I said under my breath. I thanked Ben for being the only one of those things I had to deal with yesterday. The knowledge I gained in the process of putting him to rest may have helped Alex and I to survive the coming morning.

    Set by Karma

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    I barely slept for the rest of the night. My every thought revolved around two subjects. Am I safe? and Is Alex and his family alright? I kept my kitchen knife with me, and I took a flashlight downstairs. Each breath I took I wondered if I had locked all my doors and windows. I had no idea if those things knew how to open them. In the closet that I kept winter clothing in I also kept a broom that had a metal handle. I twisted the broom head off and went over to one of my kitchen drawers. Inside were several rolls of duct tape. I took one and retreated back to my room with everything.

    I taped my knife to the broom handle and for the next half-hour I practiced fighting with it. Being in such a closed space, I couldn't do very many swinging attacks, but I had stabbing down, and I worked on sweeping imaginary legs while keeping imaginary zombies from biting and/or scratching me. Outside I heard a faint moan. It had to have been right outside of my house. Just when I was about to try to go back to sleep, too. I thought.

    For the rest of the night, I read a disaster-preparation/survival manual that my dad had given me years before, back when I was still in college. While it unfortunately lacked any information on how to deal with what I was dealing with, it did have useful tips on how to collect and purify water. I heard nothing from Alex's house until around 4:30 when he called my house. I picked up the phone as quickly as I could.

    "Alex?" I said hurriedly. "Yeah." he answered, "Have you looked outside? I've counted seven of them at one time. Hard to identify anymore in this light." He whispered. "Sun'll be up enough for us to fight in about two hours." I said. We were both whispering out of fear. "You've fought one, should I bring my shotgun or no?" Alex asked me. "No, that helicopter probably roused enough of them already. I made a spear from a broom handle and a kitchen knife, maybe you can do something similar with an AR-15? Just keep the safety on unless absolutely necessary." I suggested. "Alright. I'll see what I can do, I'll call again in two hours to let you know if your front door is clear."

    I got about another 30 minutes of sleep before being woken up again by Alex's phone call. "Hey." I said, trying to clear my head. "Your front door is clear for the most part, there are two standing about fifteen to twenty feet in front of it. "Alright, I'll be out in a bit. I'll try to knock on your door as a sign that your clear, but if nothing else I scream your name a couple times. Got it?" I asked. "Yeah, hurry up." Alex confirmed.

    I used the toilet and got a drink of water before I burst out of my front door with my spear an a new knife strapped to my thigh. The zombies all turned to face me and started shambling my way. "Shit." I said when I realized how bad of a situation I had just gotten myself into. I stabbed at the closest zombie, but I missed its eye and left a cut on its forehead instead. A useless blow. I brought my spear back and aimed lower, trying to go up through the jaw and into the brain. It worked, for the most part, but the spear got stuck and allowed another zombie to close on me.

    After a few tense (and frustrating) seconds, I shoved the zombie that was stuck on my spear forward and the force of its fall dragged it off of my spear. I hit my new attacker with the handle of my spear to stall it some. I then put my leg-sweeping technique to work. The zombie went down and its head hit the pavement. I brought the knife-end of my spear up and brought it back down onto the zombie's face. Luckily for me, the blade slid into the zombie's eye-socket after sliding off the nose.

    Seeing at least ten more zombies closing on me, however, prevented me from celebrating any kind of victory. "ALEX!" I screamed, "ALEX! ALEEEEX!" I repeated. I saw Alex's door open through the advancing crowd. Alex had an AR-15 in his hands and a hammer in his belt. "Need help, now! NOW!" I went on as I took a swing at a zombie's neck. "Hey, hey!" Alex yelled. Some of the zombies turned around and focused their attention on him. I tripped yet another zombie and went for the "jaw stab" that I had used on the first. I had gotten more luck this time with the jaw strike, and the zombie collapsed without issue. "Die you piece of-!" Alex didn't bother to finish his sentence, but it sounded like he was finishing off at least one.

    For the next twenty minutes, despite the fight feeling like it took an hour or more, Alex and I fought. By the time we killed the last one, we were both panting and certain parts of our clothes were soaked in blood. I was glad I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, because after I surveyed the carnage in full one last time, and I had finally recognized the smell, I threw up all over the road.

    I wiped my mouth, fell to my knees, looked over at Alex, and said, "This is the end, isn't it?"

    Set by Karma

  5. #5
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    "This is the end, isn't it?" The words resonated in Alex's mind for a few slow minutes. "No. Not for us. We just won this fight, didn't we? And we've got hardly any experience with these things. We're gonna get better and we're gonna ride this thing out. You hear me? You hear me?" He repeated, seeking an answer from me. "Yeah." I answered plainly. "Good," Alex confirmed, "Now let's gather these bodies up and... Burn 'em." I'd supposed that the thought had unsettled him almost as much as it had me.

    It took us around an hour or more to gather up the bodies, but before we ignited them, a thought occurred to me that I couldn't keep suppressed. "Hey, should we really burn them? What if they respond to smell or get attracted to the sight of the smoke?" I asked. "You want to smell them when they really start to rot? That smell will probably carry longer. What if they get attracted to that smell?" Alex countered. "So should we just burn one or two and see what happens, then either keep burning or try to dig a, I don't know, a mass grave?" I suggested. Alex sighed and said "I guess."

    Another hour had passed, with Alex and I watching each-other's backs as two bodies burned. So far, nothing had come of it. "Hey, this is gonna sound a little weird at first, but, after seeing all those zeds outside our houses, I think you and your family should move into my house until this thing ends. I've got two guest bedrooms, and they're both upstairs. I'm sure they're a helluva lot safer than any room on the first floor of any building." Alex was quiet for a little while before he declined. "The offer stands. Don't wait so long that the dead manage to get to you after one wrong step."

    We burned the rest of the bodies all at once and called it a day. Frankly, I needed it. I went home, had breakfast, and watched TV all day. I started with the news, where they reported that helicopters carrying scientists and soldiers were seen flying out of the exclusion zone. Great. The government has abandoned us entirely. Hopefully they don't start dropping bombs. I changed the channel and watched documentaries for much of the rest of the day. Before the sun went down entirely, I peered out my window to look for more zombies. I didn't see anything human-shaped, but I noticed storm clouds coming in. That would probably make life more difficult.

    Set by Karma

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