K. T. Swartz Read online

  ‘I used to play RPG’s and first-person shooters, and one of my favorite things to do was loot houses and use whatever lock-picking skills my character possessed to break into chests, locked rooms, and whatever else I could find. I don’t consider myself to be a law-breaker in reality. The thought of stealing someone else’s stuff leaves butterflies in my stomach, but as I pushed my buggy down aisle after aisle, picking up a couple rolls of duct tape, several packs of nails and screws, I can’t deny the thrill I got just loading my newly acquired stuff into the back of my newly acquired truck. Maybe I really am a thief at heart.’

  • excerpt from August 29 entry

  She filled the truck bed with 2x4s and the passenger seat with carpentry tools, batteries, nylon rope, bags of supplies, and various chemicals. The truck actually started on the first turn. She put it in gear and slowly drove out into the rain, stopping only to grab her bike. Then she headed to the highest point in town, a towering hill with a Burger Boulevard on top. She passed an old restaurant that had never quite made up its mind what it wanted to be: be it a steak house or a Chinese buffet. She passed a movie rental store, all dark and empty. She could finally run in and grab a movie without having to wait in line. Too bad she had no tv. At the Burger Boulevard, she pulled in the front lot and dug her binoculars out.

  ‘I had a few places in mind for my fortifications, to store my supplies and actually sleep for eight hours.

  Every one of them has to meet certain specifications: minimal glass, only one or two ground entrances, and a second story with a staircase that can be torn down. They can’t be stand-alone buildings, instead can offer easy escape routes to other locations should my position ever be compromised. I prefer high places, usually only accessible by rope ladder. Wide open places like warehouses are dangerous; with so much open space, they are difficult to defend. My qualifications usually rule out most commercial buildings pretty quick, including all large department stores and restaurants.

  The old buildings downtown will be best, old houses with narrow stairs and multiple floors. Dangerous though, considering I’ll have to work my way downtown.

  It’s always my goal to have at least three permanent locations and maybe a few temporary way stations across town, if needed. I already have the trailer outside town; I need one here in the shopping district and one downtown. And the best place to see it all is atop the highest hill in Danville.’

  • excerpt from August 29 entry

  Her binoculars locked on a rather newish building along the South Danville Bypass. A firehouse. Perfect. She looked over her shoulder as she backed up. A zombie grabbed the back of the truck. She floored it in reverse. The truck bounced and bucked as the zombie fry-cook rolled under the tires. She looked through the windshield; braked. The male zombie clawed at the blacktop, his cloudy eyes on the truck. His broken spine might have kept him on the ground, but his stomach kept him moving. She put the truck in gear, turned the wheel; the tires rolled over his skull. Popped it like a watermelon under a hammer.

  She drove down the hill. Abandoned vehicles were nose to nose and on the shoulders and both sides of the road. She put the truck in all-wheel drive and took the median, avoided a toppled-over semi-truck of snack cakes. She braked, stared hard at the back doors. All that food with long expiration dates. And all that sugar. Shaking her head, she drove on by; dug in her pack for another apple. The juice sparkled on her tongue, tingled as she swallowed. So much better than high fructose corn syrup.

  She slowed as she passed a grocery store, Roger’s. A gas station sat in front of it. Maybe she’d check to see if there was any left later. The tank was still half full. She pulled off the road, drove up the gravel path to the firehouse. An eye doctor’s residency sat beside it. That reminded her, she’d have to hit up an All-Mart soon. She’d been wearing these contacts for almost a month, and they needed to be replaced. She’d have to make a grocery list before she cleared it out too. The truck stopped in front of the station. Only one of the garage doors was open.

  She sat for a moment, just looked at the brick building. The front door could be easily boarded up, the sliding garage doors reinforced once she found someplace with sheet metal. No doubt the station would have a few spare axes she could use. A lone fire truck sat in the wide garage. Where the other one was she had no idea. She cut off the engine. Climbed out. Keys in her pocket, gun out, with her crowbar in her other hand, she slunk around the truck, darted for the edge of the firehouse. The building had enough light coming through the windows upstairs to illuminate the floor and metal staircase to the second level. She stepped inside, listened to the slow, steady drizzle on the windows. Nothing else disturbed the silence.

  Many of the helmets and overcoats the firemen wore were gone; she stopped by the wall decorated with name plaques. A dozen or so men and women had once worked in this building. Smiling faces looked down from their photos. She moved down the wall, to a small shrine with news articles clipped to it. ‘Fireman Loses Life in Tragic Blaze’. Maybe it was the shrine, or maybe the faces of those who worked here, but the brick and cement building still felt occupied, though it was empty. She checked each room, upstairs and down. The only way up was the metal staircase, and it wouldn’t be difficult to tear apart. In fact, she could use most of it as bars for the windows.

  Other than the doors and windows there wasn’t much else she needed to fortify. And she had the supplies to handle most of the changes now. So, she unloaded the truck, stacked the lumber on the floor beside the fire truck and set her tools aside. The first thing she did was open a window over the garage doors and throw a rope out. Then she drove the fire truck out of the station and turned it parallel with the main entrance. All she had to do was slide the long truck in front of the garage doors, and reaching the doors would be too difficult for zombie brains to fathom. Only those with hand-eye coordination could manage the climb. But she could fix that with sheet metal over the fire engine.

  She backed up the truck and spun it parallel with the building. The passenger’s side mirror scraped brick. Glass shattered; the bent mirror snapped off as she spun the wheel. The back headlight cracked. She straightened the wheel and cut the engine. She climbed out, peeked around the truck. She couldn’t even slip between it and the doors. Perfect. As a temporary measure, the truck worked. She climbed up the rope, through the open window, and downstairs. Her zombie uniform went on one of the clothes hangers. With her hammer, she located the studs around the downstairs windows and front door. One by one, she marked them. Put the batteries in her drill. Its whine filled the station. 2x4 after 2x4 went over the windows, until only thin threads of sunlight peeked through. She wiped the sweat off her forehead; stepped back.

  Tomorrow she’d tackle the stairs, when the sun was up. For now she had water to boil for a bath and sheets to shake out. The firehouse cots actually looked more comfy than the trailer couch that had seen better days. She was going to get spoiled this way.

  The morning light streamed through the upstairs windows; all open, they let in a cool breeze that sent a chill down her spine. She adjusted the blowtorch’s flame, watched its color turn from orange to blue, where the center faded into white. On the second floor, she lay flat on her stomach, her arms and head over the edge. Two steps down, she touched the flame to black metal, slowly ran it back and forth until the metal began to sag. With her hammer, she bent it until it snapped in two. She moved to the other side, melted the metal until it broke. She tossed her rope ladder over the edge. Blowtorch in one hand, hammer in the other, she slid down the fireman’s pole. Repeated the same process until the staircase began to lean. She pushed against it.

  The metal stairs crashed into the concrete floor, had her cringing, standing still until the ringing in her ears stopped. Shaking her head, she rolled the staircase out of the way. Back aching, she leaned as far backwards as she could, twisted one way, then the other. Touched her toes, bent her knees. Did a few jumping jacks. Bubbles gurgled as she drained her water bottle. The first ma
jor project was done. Now for the next. She climbed the rope ladder to the second floor. Stuck her head out the window.

  The storm from yesterday had blown over completely, leaving the air clean and just a bit cool. No clouds floated in a sky so blue. Below that infinite dome, Danville was peaceful, if she ignored the abandoned cars and trucks on the road. For all the noise she’d made, no zombies shambled their way up the uneven drive. She climbed halfway out the window, looked up at the roof. She was going to have to make another ladder and attach it to the roof before she left: an escape route should the first floor ever be overrun.

  After that, she would hit up All-Mart and then head into town to start work on another residence. Along the way, maybe she’d pick up a few more supplies wherever she could find them. Once she was settled, the real fun would begin.

  Her gaze dropped to the gravel below. Fun… this was fun? Spending her life covered in zombie gore, unable to make a sound or drop her guard? To be unable to just walk for the sake of enjoyment? She needed at least two weapons wherever she went, and couldn’t chance stepping outside without her layers on. There were mornings where her dreams drew her back to the life she had, only for her to find herself alone and trapped in this horrible nightmare when she woke. Knowing this was reality made her sick.

  ‘Sure, I can stay in my hole, live the rest of my life behind the impenetrable walls of my firehouse – and I’ve known people who have – but safety, as I know, is a poison. Once someone believes they’re safe, the rest of the world becomes too dangerous to circulate in. Leaving can get them killed, so why do it? And there they waste away, too terrified to do the simplest things. Too many good people have lost themselves, trapped in their ‘safe’ havens, to the point where it drives them crazy, attacking both friend and family because suddenly everything is a threat. These mini-fortresses I create always have that allure of ‘safety’. It whispers the dream of long years and no more fighting, but I can’t listen. I refuse.

  I have only good excuse, but it works every time. Jeremy.’

  • excerpt from August 30 entry

  She ducked back inside. Changed her clothes. Today was a dangerous day. While the hardware store was relatively empty and easily accessible, while she had some food stocked at the trailer and the fire station, she still needed more. Danville had two major grocery/department stores close by and several more smaller stores on the outskirts of town. The biggest – All-Mart – would have the larger assortment. Both a good and bad thing. The second largest – Roger’s – wouldn’t; it didn’t have a garden center, nor did it have a hunting department, and she needed more bullets.

  She rolled a cherry around in her mouth, split it in half with her tongue. Worked the seed free and spat it into the trashcan.

  ‘In the hierarchy of food acquisition, convenience store supplies went first, being easy to access. When that ran out, people started hitting small grocery stores. The smaller ones are usually safer than the bigger ones. When those dry up, people move on to houses. But the large stores were pretty much left alone, because – well – the bigger the store, the greater the number of zombies. But necessity is necessity.

  Normally I don’t hit stores like All-Mart, but as its name suggests, it has everything. True, I can visit a bunch of smaller stores, thereby diminishing my chances of being overwhelmed, but there’s a chance they’re already picked clean. I don’t have the patience for wasted trips. Foolish human emotion, I know, but I’m ready for a little zombie slaughter. I’m sick of looking at my hometown and knowing these monsters are poisoning it. I want my home and my family back. I guess one out of two isn’t bad.’

  • excerpt from August 30 entry

  She drove down the hill, parked in Morrow’s lot. Took out her binoculars. With a store as large as All-Mart, a different strategy for attack was needed. She knew the store like the back of her hand, had spent years grocery shopping there. Like Morrow’s, it was a giant warehouse, with exposed metal beams and ductwork high overhead. It was divided into sections: Groceries, Electronics, Toys, Clothing, Automotive, House wares… The easiest plan was to sneak into the building and cause a distraction to draw all the zombies into one area. If she had the ingredients, she could make a few more pipe bombs. Unfortunately some of those items were at All-Mart.

  What if she rigged the shelves to fall when a large number of zombies collected under them? Possible, but that would require a lot of prep-work and a few too many chances to attract attention. She could always find a high place in the store, like the bike rack and snipe whatever zombies came within range, but she could be there all day waiting for them to show, and the likelihood of finding a secure spot was minimal without being too far from the targets, not to mention lost the dark. Sneak attacks were probably the quietest method, but the probability of her sneaking up on every zombie without being detected was also slim. The building had few exits and few places to hide. The darkness alone was her greatest enemy. Coupled with the building’s layout and she was almost ready to pick another store.

  Movement attracted her attention. She adjusted the binoculars. A lone zombie shuffled to a stop between a truck and a toppled motorcycle. He stood there, jaw agape, shoulders sagging. His head turned to his left. She shifted her focus, followed his line of sight. Another zombie – a female in daisy dukes and a torn camisole – stood in the middle of the crosswalk just like an irritating pedestrian trying to piss off drivers. She even had a plastic bag in the crook of her arm. One of her heeled shoes hung around her ankle; the other had somehow managed to stay on.

  May turned the binoculars to the rest of the parking lot. In such a wide space, there had to be more than two zombies. But she saw no more. She climbed out of the truck for a quick run-through of Morrow’s. 2x4s, metal fencing, more drill battery packs, extra blowtorches. She stuck the bags in the front seat and drove slowly to All-Mart. The sound of the engine had both zombies looking her way. Her foot pressed against the accelerator. The female zombie limped right toward her. The truck slammed into her; the zombie rolled and bumped under the carriage, sliding to a stop behind her. Black streaks trailed from the tires.

  She backed up. Bone crunched as she braked. Looked around for the other one. Rotting hands slapped her window. She hissed, floored it in reverse, far enough away to leave the zombie stumbling after her. A corner of her lips twitched. She put the truck in gear, this time angling it better. The driver-side tires rolled right over him, hitting torso, chest, and skull. When she looked back; black gore followed. Flattened up the middle, the corpse was one big stain on blacktop.

  She braked, looked to All-Mart’s front entrance. Zombies pawed at the interior glass doors. For an instant the idea of ramming the truck through both sets of doors flickered through her mind, but their metal frames would only damage the vehicle too badly for it to be of any use. And she needed this truck. Shaking her head, she looked around the parking lot. No other zombies shuffled toward her.

  She slid across the passenger seat; opened the door. Crowbar in hand, she watched the zombies, could barely see them through the smears of black fluid they left behind. Fingers trailed through the gore. Their moans rolled over her, sent a shiver up her spine. She dug the claw end of the crowbar into the seam of the first set of doors and pushed them wide apart. The zombies beat against the second set, made them wobble. She took a deep breath, squeezed the crowbar in her hands.

  And slammed it into the thin barrier between her and the undead; glass splintered. Like the ravenous, mindless monsters they were, the zombies pushed their fingers through the cracks, leaving behind chunks of flesh. She ran for the truck. Fingers raked her shoulder, grabbed her arm. She swung without looking, felt the vibration of metal against bone. The zombie stumbled back, dragged at her sleeve. Behind her, glass shattered. She swung again, as hard as she could. Bone caved in, forced blood out of the zombie’s nose and ears. The monster sagged against the wall as loud moans suddenly grew so much louder. She ran. Dove into the truck and slammed the door.

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sp; Dozens of arms clawed at the air, pealed the glass from the doorframes. They climbed over and around the waist-high frame. Like rats they poured into the parking lot. She put the truck in gear and floored it. Tires squealed, as the first shambling dead crossed the threshold. Arms waved for the truck; with dragging feet and cloudy eyes, they surged into the light. She drove all the way down to the far end of the store and pointed the grill at them. One foot on the brake, the other on the gas, she tapped it lightly. Let the engine rev. Not too fast or she’d destroy the truck. But hit them at the right speed, and she’d mow them down like grass. Oh, for a semi-truck right about now.

  She let off the brake; the truck bucked, shooting forward. Her knuckles went white on the steering wheel as it flew toward the All-Mart shoppers. They were a strange mix of camo, Spring-Break fun, and brown smocks with the All-Mart logo on the left shoulder. She aimed for the stragglers, and the truck slammed into them. It rattled hard enough to make her teeth chatter before flying past. She braked, looked back. Three zombies now resembled speed bumps. She backed right into a few more. They bounced like rubber balls off the truck bed. Fists pounded the windows. But as she pulled away, seven zombies didn’t get back up.