In the House in a Heartbeat

New Life

New Life

When I woke up I didn’t know where I was, I thought what had happened the day before was all a dream, but when I looked around and saw everyone sprawled out on the floor I knew It wasn’t . I was hungry and decided to look for food, all I found was some sodas and beer in the mini fridge, I found a box of MRE’s but had no idea how to make them, so I grabbed a coke and went into the next room.  I turned the TV on and all that was on was the emergency broadcast message.  I went back into the living room and grabbed my two rifles, some mags, a hand gun, and a radio and left a note saying where I was and how to contact me I also turned on the radio so I could contact them.

I walked up the stairs to the roof and took in the view of the city. All was still; cars were either in parking lots or on the side of the road, except for the odd humvee or two. I set the two rifles down, and turned on the radio just in case the others needed me. I looked through the scope of my bolt-action and tried to find some sign of life, I saw nothing,  it was like everyone got up and left without a trace. I sat down and began removing the scope from my rifle to move it to the M14 when Doc called on the radio.

“Matt?”

“What’s up?”

“Why are you on the roof?”

“I wanted to get a view of the city”

“And?”

“It’s a freaking ghost town, like everyone got up and left”

“OK come back down, I’m making breakfast”

“I’ll be right there”

I retightened the screw and headed back to the room when I noticed the American Flag waving in the wind, reminding me of when I would put up the flags for ROTC. I walked over to the flagpole and lowered the flag so that I could turn it upside down. The walk back to the room took longer than I thought because I had forgotten what room number we had. I finally radioed Doc, and I found the room.

When I got there, Doc had made the MRE’s, which were actually easy to cook. I had spaghetti with meat sauce and a small bag of candy that came with it. “We have electricity and I think the water is still running”, I said addressing the whole group.

“How do you know?” asked Doc

“I tried watching TV but the emergency broadcast was showing.”

“Ok, good we need to do a supply run, we can take the humvee and find a moving van or an 18 wheeler, then load it up with food and supplies, I don’t want you guys eating too many MRE’s, they have a lot of calories and you’ll get tired of them after a while trust me.”

“There’s an outdoor’s store and Sam’s nearby, and a gun store on the North side of town, the roads are clear so we can get there quickly.”

“Ok, let’s go, Louis is staying behind.”

“Why?”

“He’s kind of freaked out about the whole thing don’t worry about it.”

We went to the gun store first; the racks lined with both military and civilian model guns one of the many perks in Texas. Instead of looking at each gun individually, we just packed them up and loaded them up in the delivery truck we found in the back of the store. We then went to the army surplus store next to it and did the same thing not leaving anything behind, we also found a pickup truck and another delivery truck already loaded with boxes.

During the ride back to the south side Doc led the small convoy with him and Liam in the humvee, then it was the two delivery trucks driven by Marcus and Justin, and Edward and I were in the pick-up. We took the cars back to the hotel, then drove to Sam’s in the humvee and started loading stuff onto flatbed carts.

“Let’s split up into groups and we can get done faster, remember non perishables, keep your radios on, and load stuff onto pallets so we can load it into the truck more easily”, said Doc.

We went our separate ways, Doc, Justin and June in one group and Marcus, Edward, Liam and I in another. We cruised slowly down the aisles grabbing boxes of cereal, snacks, candy, soda and a lot of water.  “Stop and be quiet for a sec”, Marcus picked up his gun and motioned for us to move up.

“What is it?” I asked as I slowly chambered a round   

“Thought I heard something”

“Radio Doc, make sure he’s good”

“Doc, are you guys ok”

“Yeah, why?”

“Thought I heard footsteps”

I heard several gunshots, then Doc called, “We have contact, they’re everywhere!” We ditched the cart and tried to find Doc.  I turned and saw about five zombies running after us, so I stopped running and downed two of them before I had to start running again. More ran out of the aisles, blood oozed from their mouths and eyes, I stopped again and started shooting again but this time I got more of them. I started running again and realized that I was separated from my group.

I saw a blond kid step out from behind some double doors and started yelling for me to go with him, so I did. I followed him into storage where I met two girls who both had light brown hair and brown eyes, one looked slightly older than the other one, but I knew they were sisters, I also saw a blond guy who was about 19 with them and another man who reminded me of Boo Radley. I radioed Doc and Marcus,”Guys I found survivors in the back of the store”

“OK, we are all alright, we’ll go get you”, replied Marcus.