Tag: zombies

Over the next couple of days I helped Andy move into his new apartment. After cleaning out the refrigerator and letting the apartment air out, I convinced him to move the former occupants’ personal items to a bedroom.

“You really care about your neighbor’s stuff?” he asked while taking a picture off the walls.

I shrugged. “Kind of. Maybe. They might come back.” I hadn’t really known them or most of my neighbors to be honest. A week ago I had broken into every apartment and taken all the food and drinks I could find but I hadn’t touched their personal belongings.

“It doesn’t seem likely.”

“Yeah but you got to have hope or why the hell are we surviving?”

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I walked inside my apartment and Andy followed me. I gestured to the sofa as I walked past it to the kitchen area, “Take a seat. You want a drink?”

“Uh, sure what do have?” Andy asked from the sofa.

“Bottled water, sodas.” The water had mostly come from the superstore while the sodas I had scavenged from my neighbors. I had seen beer and other alcoholic beverages in a few apartments but had left them.

“Root beer?” he asked.

“Sure.” I pulled two cans out of a box and walked around to the living room. I handed one to Andy and sat in my watch chair with the other. We sat in silence for a minute drinking our warm sodas.

“What’s with the couch?” Andy asked pointing to the short sofa standing on end by the door.

“I use it to block the door.”

“Ah, ok. So, today was a lot of fun. What are we going to do tomorrow?”

I couldn’t help myself and launched into my best mad scientist mouse voice, “The same thing we do everyday. Try to take over the world!” Andy stared at me blankly for a second while I broke down laughing for the first time in weeks.

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We made it back to Andy’s store without incident. I stopped in front of the store and looked south toward my apartment. Andy stopped along side me.

“So, if you want I could go with you. Just to make sure they aren’t hanging around. It’s up to you,” Andy said.

The three zombies I saw might not have wandered into my apartment complex. They probably just ran off before I made it back around those few blocks. But what if they hadn’t? What if they were hanging out waiting for me to go home? Not like a planned trap but just on accident. Could I take three zombies? Probably not. Going alone was a risk. On the other hand, letting Andy know where I lived was a risk. He didn’t seem like a bad guy but he was still a guy, a cis guy. I trusted him to watch my back out here but I didn’t want him thinking it was more than that. Go alone or take Andy with me. Either decision could bite me in the ass.

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I woke up early to the beeping of my watch alarm. My head felt clear but my migraines sometimes came back the next day. I mixed a can of evaporated milk with water and poured some into a bowl with cereal. I ate standing in the kitchen listening for twinges of pain from my head. There didn’t appear to be any so I decided to continue with the day’s plan.

After getting dressed, I grabbed my backpack and added my bottle of migraine medicine to a side pocket just in case. I strapped on my machete and grabbed my bat. The apartment complex was empty of zombies when I checked through the windows. At the edge of the fence, I looked up the street toward Andy’s store and spotted some zombies shuffling down street. I stepped back behind the fence and listened. No pounding footsteps came my way. They hadn’t seen me. I peeked one eye out around the fence.

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Once we got back to Andy’s store we took turns pumping air into his new mattress.

“Why didn’t you go home went the store got looted?” I asked while stepping on the pump.

“I live on the other side of the city. South of Rio Grande street. I was too scared to walk. No one would come get me so I just hunkered down and hoped it blew over.”

“No one would come get you?” he shook his head, “No came for me either. Facebook, text messages, phone calls and no one answered. Were your parents in the city?”

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I honestly didn’t want to have to deal with Andy again but to keep from running out of estrogen I probably would have to. Maybe I could just ignore him? We would run into each other eventually in the superstore. So go talk to him at his store in the open or randomly bump into him at the superstore in the dark? Not much of a choice.

My new watch said it was Tuesday the ninth day of the month. Long enough for my ankle to be mostly healed. It still ached a little in the morning but that passed quickly. After gearing up with backpack, baseball bat, and machete, I headed out. I took the direct route to his store; scanning cross streets for zombies before dashing across.

I stopped across the street from Andy’s store watching for a minute. No zombies around the store. No zombies up or down the street. Wait there was one. Far enough away that it blended in until it moved. I watched it shuffle a couple of time before deciding it was far enough away to not see me. I crossed to the the store and walked to the front door. One door was still broken but Andy had tied a wooden pallet to cover the opening. I looked around inside.

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Content Warning: Zombie child death. Normally I wouldn’t warn about a zombie death but “child” death is a bit different.

I spent a couple of days going from apartment to apartment collecting what food had been left behind. In a couple of apartments, I found small half full cases of bottled water. In the end I had enough to last a few weeks. Maybe, I thought, I didn’t need to go back to the superstore and risk running into Andy. I hadn’t found large stock piles of food and water but it added up. I would have to leave the apartment complex if I wanted to keep finding anything though.

The next day, I walked into the neighborhood that bordered on the apartment complex. Before the zombies, my roommate and I had walked around here for exercise. We had looked at the changing lawn decorations as holidays had come and gone. Judged Christmas lights in the winter and counted flags during the summer.

Now I was looking supplies and hoping to avoid zombies.

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The next day my ankle was a bit more sensitive to bearing my weight. I spent time with it elevated while reading and watching outside. The Stand didn’t have quite the same appeal now. I ate cold meals.

Two more days passed in the same way. The bruise on my shoulder ached less and I began practicing with the machete. I tried using my bat in one hand and my machete in the other hand. I found swinging with my left awkward but having an extra weapon might come in handy so I kept practicing.

My previous trips to the superstore insured that I wouldn’t run out of food before my ankle had time to heal but I would need to ration a little. I considered breaking into the other apartments in the complex. Most of my neighbors had left in a hurry probably not taking the time to clear out their pantry. I had avoided breaking in before for much the same reason I had left my roommate’s food alone. I was becoming less concerned with seeming like a upstanding citizen and more concerned with survival.

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Twenty minutes later, I was ready to get moving. Well most of me was. My ankle still hurt when I put weight on it. Andy found a cane for me after I refused to lean on him. I limped out of the store under my own power while he closed the doors behind us.

My bat and machete were still laying near the bodies. I made my way over to my machete watching the corners of buildings for motion. I started to dip down to retrieve my machete when Andy swooped in and picked it up for me.

“Here you go. I’ll get your bat,” he said walking off. I sheathed the machete and stuck my bat in my pack when he handed it to me.

“We should move the bodies,” I said.

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