The Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter 7 - Reaching The Shelter

None of us spoke. We both picked up a gun – James picked up a Uzi-like gun and I picked up my AK-47. We entered the supermarket. There was silence now. James signalled me to stay at the door. I looked around as much as I could from near the door.

I didn't hear anything for some time. Finally, I heard James call my name. He seemed calm. I felt relieved to see that Caesar was fine. He had shot a zombie. Nothing was wrong. Phew. James told me that the supermarket was safe now. I could take whatever was needed. I went over to the food section. I picked up some essential items from there. Then I went over to the medical area and took a few essential medical stuff like bandages, and a few more things.

'OK, you guys can also take anything if you want. I've taken the very essential things. There's a lot of space in the minivan – so there's no problem to take a few extra things.'

I left with the things and loaded them into the boot of the minivan. I felt something was wrong. I realized suddenly that these guys had been so obedient. I hadn't expected them to almost consider me their leader. OK, maybe I had a little more brain than them, but surely they wouldn't have let a stranger like me lead them. The two of them were quite stronger than me. If they wanted, they could easily boss around. But they didn't. That was uncanny.

The two of them returned with a few more things. I was already beside the driver seat, so I didn't see what they had brought. James sat on the driver seat. I was so eager to know what was going on that I couldn't hold myself. I asked, 'why is it that you two have been following all that I have said? You could easily overpower me and do whatever you wished to do. Why not do that?'

They looked at each other. James replied to me, 'the thing is that we know that our life is at stake here. And we understand that we need brain instead of power here. And you certainly have more brain than we do. So, we decided to follow everything you said after you fell asleep the day we were at Caesar's house. We thought it would be better for all of us.'

I didn't say anything after that. We drove along for some more time. After a few more hours, it was dark.

'I think this place would be safe.' James said as he pulled over near a building. 'It's quite near the highway, and we can quickly go around to check for zombies. Plus, the doors are quite sturdy – that would also be of some use.'

'OK. Let's go in and see if there's anyone inside.'

We pushed the heavy door. I saw that the wall was quite high too. Good choice, I thought. The building inside wasn't very big, but it was big enough for us. The walls were painted a dull yellow, and the door was brownish-red, as if it was rusted. The building didn't have any floors except the ground floor.

We went inside. The house was painted navy blue inside. There was a lot of furniture inside the house. There was a TV, computer and a good kitchen too. It seemed pretty good for us to stay. James and Caesar went around in each room. A few minutes later, they declared that the house was safe. They went out and locked the entry gate, to prevent zombies from coming inside. They parked the minivan inside. It was 8 o' clock now. We checked the house for food – we were bored of eating packaged food already.

We didn't find anything to eat except an almost-finished, cold and dry pizza, which all of us refused to eat. We just brought the old stock of food and finished it off. James and Caesar were quite tired of driving for a long time, and instantly went to sleep. But I hadn't done anything the whole day except sitting on a car seat. I somehow fell asleep after some time.

The next day we all woke up almost together. There had been a loud bang somewhere. I couldn't tell if it came from nearby or far-away.

We all looked at each other in surprise. Caesar got up and looked out of the window.

'I can see smoke in the distance. Whatever it was, it was quite far away. No need to get scared from it.'

James and I got up from our beds and looked out too. The smoke came from a distance, as if there was a huge fire somewhere. We put the curtains back and freshened up. In an hour, we had had breakfast and left for the shelter again. The rest of the day was quite normal. We moved through the highway towards the shelter. Caesar drove quite fast, and I think he broke the speed limit pretty easily. The wind rushed at my face, and it felt really very good.

We reached the shelter at about 5 in the evening. We saw army guards - living ones – standing at the gate. They just checked our pulse and did a quick scan for any cuts from zombies or infected areas. We all came out clear. They said they would have to take away our food supplies, but that we could keep our weapons for self-defence. Weird, I thought. I thought they would have said the opposite.

We went into the shelter. There were no zombies there. All the people were totally living and all of them seemed quite good-natured except a few. I felt good to be with so many humans again. Living humans, I mean to say. I had also driven for some time, with Caesar showing me the way to the shelter. We had all our weapons transferred to a room. What kind of a military shelter was this? With all these facilities completely ready. I thought we would have to struggle a little for shelter. But this place looked like a hotel. Maybe it was really a hotel that was converted to a shelter.

Anyhow, I was tired of driving, and decided to rest for some time. All of us shared the same room so that we could look out for each other. Even though this place was much safer, we couldn't be so sure. We all rested for some time, then went out to explore and make a few more acquaintances. The people seemed quite happy that they were safe now, but some felt sad that they had to leave their families and 'good old lives' behind. We talked to a few people around. Most of them had heard about the shelter on the radio only, and had had very close encounters with zombies some time or the other.

I had some too, but not as scary as the ones people told me about. One said a zombie attacked him when he was urinating in a public toilet. He said he barely survived because he was carrying pepper powder from the market at that time. He had thrown the powder into the eyes of the zombies, and it somehow seemed to have worked on it just the way it does on humans.

We were unexpectedly called for dinner at 9. We hadn't really expected an apocalypse shelter to have such wonderful food as they had. They said that they had got the news about the apocalypse quite early in the month, and had prepared the shelter in about a week, that is why the arrangements were just so perfect.

A month earlier? What were they, time travellers? This just kept getting weirder and weirder. First they allow us to keep weapons, then they give us a perfect room, and now a perfect dinner. And also, they knew about this a month earlier. This is just so great.

I thought of myself to be quite lucky. This life seemed better than what I had before all this happened. All the food, the rooms, such wonderful people. It all seemed like a dream.

We finished dinner and went to bed at 11. People told us their stories of the apocalypse after dinner. Some of them were actually funny, some of them gave everybody goose bumps. We went to bed at 11, totally engaged in conversation with other people.

I thought about it all in bed. First zombies attack, then I find two friends, then these two friends become as friendly as brothers, then a loud boom on the third morning, then a totally perfect shelter for a survivors. Maybe they made it all so perfect because we would be the ones who'd have to continue the human race in the city. If everybody gets killed, then New Jersey would become lifeless.