Safe...for Now

We all slept deeply that night after our running battle with the zombie hordes. Ellen was the first to wake up, and it was already late morning. We had been asleep for more than 15 hours.

That was the first night since this madness began that I didn't dream. My sleep has been haunted by a strange wailing, like a child crying for her mother. In my nightmares, I have imagined it was my daughter calling for me. I would search from room to room, trying to follow the sound. Zombies reached out at me from every corner, slowing my progress.

Yet, each time I thought I had found the right room, the wailing sound moved to another spot, and my search would begin again. The dream always seems to end the same way. Finally, I do find the right room. I open a door, and Frances is kneeling on the floor by her mother's corpse. She is crying, holding her head in her hands and rocking back and forth.

I rush into the room to cradle my little girl in my arms. I am reaching for her, but then something grabs me by the throat and pulls me away. I can't breathe. My daughter continues wailing across the room, and I am helpless to do anything. As my breath leaves my body, my vision fades. Then I awake in a sweat, gasping for breath.

On some of those nights, startled awake by my dream in a dark room somewhere in the city, I swear I can hear that crying in the far distance. Only my fear keeps me from rushing after the noise to rescue my daughter. Of course, Frances is dead, and she is never coming back.

Those dreams have kept me wondering. Is the crying I hear when I awake really there? Or is it my imagination? Could there be a child--or children--out there waiting for someone to rescue them? But when the day comes, the voices are gone. Carl and Ellen do not seem to have heard them. Maybe I'm starting to go crazy. Could I be transforming into one of them?

But last night, I didn't dream at all. When Ellen shook me awake, I felt almost human, though incredibly hungry and sore. We ate the last of our food. Fortunately, the deli had running water, so we were able to fill up our water bottles.

The sun was high overhead when we left the meat locker. Our goal was still to find this "safe house" at 123rd and Dalton. We still had about 30 blocks to go.

At first, it seemed as if it would be easy going. No zombies in sight. But soon, about a dozen were rushing at us from an alley. We bashed them into a pulp and kept moving. At 105th, we looked down the street and saw a huge crowd, perhaps a hundred, two hundred zombies? We crept through the intersection as quietly as possible.

We reached the other side without alerting the horde, and my heart rate backed down to normal. That's when we struck gold. There was a small convenience store with the windows and glass doors intact. We looked inside and saw that the shelves were fully stocked. Somehow the looters had missed this place.

The door, of course, was locked. Carl took my shovel and bashed in a window. Immediately, a piercing alarm went off. We all cringed and covered our ears. I started to back away from the noise, but someone was pushing me forward into the store. I resisted.

I resisted, that is, until I saw a dark cloud pouring our way. Every zombie for blocks was rushing toward us. The crowd we had successfully bypassed moments before was now rounding the corner. It grew larger at each moment.

We scrambled over broken glass and made our way to the rear of the store. Ellen pushed me into a corner, and we huddled there together. I closed my eyes tightly to block out the ear-splitting alarm, but it didn't work.

Then, glass shards fell to the floor. Creatures were banging on the sturdy glass doors, and they began to disintegrate. The horde of zombies was coming our way. Carl and Ellen both fired their weapons at the same time, and the shock slowed the surge for a moment, but the zombies kept coming.

They were on us, and for a long time, all I remember was pushing out, striking out, lunging forward with the shovel. My arms were so tired I could barely lift them. First one, then two, then half a dozen times, zombie claws ripped into my flesh. I knew this was the end for us.

Sometime during the onslaught, the alarm stopped shrieking. The zombies, though, didn't stop coming. Carl fired shell after shell into the flood. I didn't think I could defend myself any longer. I dropped to my knees and waited for the end. Blood was pouring down my forehead and into my eyes.

But then, my eyes blinded and stinging from the blood, I could hear that the violence had stopped. There were no more slathering fiends climbing over each other to get at us. The firing had stopped. I was alive.

"Mike, are you okay? Hang in there."

I started to cry. Then I was sobbing. My body was heaving so much that I had trouble breathing. I felt hands on me tending to my wounds. Setting my body carefully on the hard floor.

Water splashed over my face, and my eyes started to clear. Ellen's face, which for so many days had been hard and blank, was now tender and concerned. She gave me a swig of some sort of sports drink.

"I think this might help you relax a little more than that stuff," said Carl. He handed me an open bottle of bourbon. I took a deep, burning drink. Then another.

I nodded my head at him and smiled. It might have been my first smile in a week.

We were all scratched up and bloody, but safe. We poured alcohol onto our wounds, and they burned like fire, but it was all we had to prevent infection. The three of us seem to be immune to whatever virus has overtaken the others, but regular infection from scrapes and cuts are still a problem.

After we ate our fill and gathered as much as we could, we trudged off again toward what we hoped would be salvation. The way was easy. The alarm had sucked out all the zombies for many blocks. There was only that eerie silence beneath the hot sun.

Finally, late this afternoon, I spotted the crude image of a house spray painted on a wall. The words scratched underneath said "safe house this way." An arrow pointed us to our destination.

We reached a pawn shop, and more graffiti told us the safe house was inside. The looted shop was a shambles, but a strong steel door in the back was open. It had a small window, covered with bars, like a jail cell. We went inside cautiously.

There were first aid kits, all sorts of weapons and ammunition, and even food and water. But there were no people. What had happened to them? They had obviously been there. People had written messages--mostly to their loved ones--on the walls. Some of the messages were pure filth. Others tried to provide helpful tips like "bash their brains in." The tips were often contradictory, so we didn't know which ones to believe.

We soon discovered a small ad hoc "survival" manual. Someone had collected tips for protecting ourselves along with information about other safe houses. A few other survivors passing through had added their own tips and information. Carl was able to determine that there seemed to be several pickup points throughout the city where helicopters made regular runs to rescue survivors. The closest was an old hospital.

We scouted around until it started to get dark. We heard lots of growling and guttural screams. And this time we all heard the strange sobbing noise. It seems very close tonight. For some reason, those echoing cries scare me a hell of a lot more than the ones that sound like a lion roaring.

We figured it was time to get inside. The steel door is sturdy and there's no way those things are getting in here tonight. I think I'll sleep well again. Tomorrow we're heading for the hospital. There are a couple of simple maps in here that promise safe, easy routes. I hope they're right.