who’d have only been about eight years old when the plasma bomb had changed everything. For them, this world was normal, the Days Before a vague childhood memory.
Liam would’ve been eight this year. Vern pushed the thought from his mind. “Well, guys, let’s take inventory.”
They knew exactly what Vern meant, and started emptying their coat pockets on the solid oak dining table.
After a few minutes taking stock, Vern said, “Well, this is not bad, and I’ve got a few boxes of ammo in the back, too. But the question is, how many of them are there?”
“We saw about forty of ‘em in the woods,” said Jack.
Vern stepped to the window and pulled back an off-white curtain. The surge of zombies was now a little more than half way to the cabin. No more were emerging from the forest. “Looks about right – maybe a few more.”
After the plasma bomb – a natural solar phenomenon – had wiped out the world’s modernity, another thing happened: people started getting sick.
Very sick.
Without the resources previously available, doctors and scientific researchers could not keep up with the mutating viruses. Some thought the plasma bomb may have even created some of the new strains somehow – but there was no way to be sure of anything anymore.
Except that something horrible was happening to people.
Those infected with the Undeath turned into zombies in a matter of days – sometimes as fast as a few hours. It was only transmitted by touch, thankfully. If it ever were to go airborne, the human race would have mere weeks before they all became relentless, mindless, brain-eating zombies.
“Let’s load up,” said Vern. “I think we can take this surge down.” He started to remove the hollow-point shells from the boxes, one at a time. “Let the perimeter defenses take out as many as possible before firing any shots. You don’t need me to remind you that we need to conserve ammo.”
The four others nodded while they loaded. The boys kept quiet, but Keith said, “You sound like you’ve run into them before.”
Vern finished loading and stepped to a drawer in the kitchen, pulled out a half-dozen long kitchen knives. “I have. A handful of times.” He didn’t go into details – they were too painful to discuss with strangers. “Here, take one each,” he said, handing out the blades. “In case things turn south.”
“Fighting zombies hand-to-hand is a dangerous proposition,” said Jack, taking a knife and slipping it into his belt. “One touch and you’re history.”
“Yes,” said Vern, “but if our guns fail us, and you can find any way to slice one of their heads off without getting touched, then a knife may be the only thing between you and life as one of the undead.”
Sean and Larry were peeking out the window, keeping an eye on the slow, dreadful approach of the surge. “They’re getting close,” said one of the boys. “About thirty yards from the perimeter.”
“Take up positions,” said Vern. “And remember – not a shot until they’re inside the trap line.”
The five men found places near the windows facing east, but soon had to move to each side of the cabin as the zombies reached the perimeter and began to swarm around, encircling the property.
The pale, slimy beings – formerly human, as Vern somberly considered – began to be sliced and diced by the security devices. Heads departed shoulders as the fully-dead dropped to the ground, only to be mindlessly trampled by the next wave of intruders.
Before long, a handful of zombies managed to clamber over the stacked fallen to avoid the traps and move in toward the cabin.
“Fire at will,” Vern called out to the others in the cabin.
A barrage of exploding bullets took the heads off several zombies.
Two made it as far as the porch, where Vern blew their heads off at near-point-blank range.
Then silence.
“We did it!” Larry cheered.
Then Vern’s face dropped into a horrified scowl as he looked beyond Larry’s shoulder.
Emerging from the forest was a surge unlike anything Vern had ever witnessed.
“Oh . . . my . . . there must be two hundred of ‘em,” was all he could muster as the swarm of bodies stumbled out of the trees like so many drunken vagrants.
Everyone turned to look, and Larry let out a little yelp.
“What are we gonna do?” asked Sean.
“We fight,” said Vern.
“We don’t have enough ammo,” said Jack.
“The perimeter will hold off some, the rest – we just have to make sure every shot counts.”
The men sat and waited for the surge to arrive – it was all they could do. There were no other defensible positions in the area, they were far from any other living people, and given the shape of the terrain, the only way to get away would be through the oncoming horde.
After close to forty five minutes of tension, the first zombies arrived at the perimeter.
Heads started flying.
But it wasn’t long before enough bodies amassed for the undead to begin climbing over the security line, as their predecessors had done barely an hour before.
Once again, the men steeled themselves and began firing. It was a gory melee as dozens of zombies infiltrated the immediate area, only to have their heads blasted off by the powerful weaponry.
But the sheer numbers proved to be too much for the small band of would-be survivors. Several zombies made it up the porch steps and began throwing themselves clumsily against the doors and windows, smashing through the glass with their grasping claws.
Several point-blank shots did away with them, but they were soon replaced by the next wave of creatures.
“I’m out of ammo!” screamed Larry. Vern tossed him his .22 handgun, but Larry quickly emptied it trying to take off the head of just one zombie. He then pulled out his knife and crouched in a corner of the kitchen.
Several minutes later, six zombies overwhelmed the cabin door and came after the men, whose ammo was now all spent.
Vern’s visitors all swiped at the zombies with their knives, cautious to not touch their attackers, yet eager to inflict damage.
Within moments, the men were cornered and quickly succumbed to the crowd of zombies and their appetite for fresh brains.
Meanwhile, Vern, seeing his situation was hopeless, retreated to his bedroom and barred the door against the zombies and the muffled screams of the men in the kitchen.
He grabbed a story he had written about his family. This was the one joyful tale he’d written after the passing of his beloved wife and son – the one that helped him begin to heal – and the only one from that period that he had kept instead of selling.
Vern sat on his bed and began to read the story aloud to comfort himself as he prepared to die. It told of a happy young family and an adventure at the beach. Vern immediately began to cry as he read it, but he kept reading it, louder and louder as the bumping and scraping and gnashing at his door grew in intensity.
As he got into the rhythm of the story, he started to notice that the attempts to gain access to his room were decreasing. Finally, they stopped.
Curious, he kept reading aloud, but carefully unbarred the door and peeked out.
The zombies were still there – some of them with fresh brains on their lips – but they were just standing, stopped in their tracks.
They seemed to be listening.
Enthralled.
Some of them began to sit down as Vern continued to read the story. The cabin was quiet except for a few muffled gurgles.
As he approached the end of the story, he started to fear they would resume their attack.
He was right.
He quickly grabbed a book off the shelf as they moved toward him, and began reading. It was something by Asimov.
It didn’t stop them.
He reached for his stack of handwritten manuscripts and started to read one of his own stories again.
That did the trick.
Th
e zombies stopped again and went back to their non-aggressive, entranced state.
It was a stand-off: as long as Vern kept reading them his own stories, the zombie onslaught was abated.
After thirty hours of reading, Vern grew weak and weary. His throat was dry, his eyes stinging.
Soon, he would fall asleep, and then the zombies would get him.
As he finished the last story in his personal inventory, the strange audience once again began to move forward. Desperate, Vern started to make up new material, right out of his head.
“Once upon a time,” he began with the cliché, not so hot at thinking on his feet, “uh, there was a group of people who paid a visit to an old friend. They were sick – and he was a doctor.”
The zombies calmed back down and settled in for another of Vern’s stories – this one a live creation.
“The sick people didn’t realize how sick they were. Many of them were so sick, they barely seemed alive. Their minds were disintegrating, their bodies imperiled. They craved something – they thought it was brain matter – but they were wrong. They craved release from their tortured prison – from their walking death.”
Vern continued to speak as he placed his stack of stories back on a shelf. “One of them,” he said, looking at what used to be a man, “had a patch of gray hair on the left side of his head, and his left eye dangling by a thread of muscles and nerves. We’ll call him Fred. Fred was barely aware of his own existence. But Fred was nonetheless a leader.”
An idea was forming in Vern’s mind. He hoped it would work.
“One day, Fred and his associates, while visiting their doctor friend, decided the best way to find peace would be