How I Survived The Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter Three - Arm Yourself

Chapter Three – Arm Yourself

Halfway across the street it all went wrong, from my left I heard a low groan and I froze, whipping my head round to see where the noise had come from. One singular zombie was ambling across the street, unaware of my presence. I held my breath, stayed absolutely still and waited for it to pass. It was almost gone, almost at the other end of the street. I let out a shuddering breath and to my complete and utter horror, the zombie stopped. It sniffed the air, turned, and looked me dead in the eye.

It began ambling towards me. I didn’t wait around any longer and sprinted the last few feet to the high metal fence. I ripped my tramp scarf from around my neck and started climbing. The gate rattled, making tons of noise I could have really done without. I heard other zombie growls from behind me and assumed I had become more interesting than the cheerleader. At the top I draped my scarf over the barbed wire and half climbed, half jumped over the top. I can’t honestly say that my landing was graceful, because it was pretty undignified. Still, I was out of immediate danger and there was no one around to see my failed attempt at gymnastics.

I picked myself up and dusted myself off and had a look round the yard. I made the mistake of glancing at the gate and I nearly threw up. A horde of the un-dead were pushing up against the wire, trying to get their hands through, not caring when their fingers broke and skin ripped from bone.

“Right.” I said to myself. “Don’t look at the gate. Just think, what do they do in the movies? Arm myself! Some kind of weapon.”

After a slightly frantic search I found a crowbar leaning against the shack, which I took to be the yard office, I used the crowbar to smash the window and climbed inside warily. Jackpot, a quick search of the desk revealed a handgun and an almost full box of bullets.  I made sure the safety was on, or at least had a guess, I’d never even seen a gun before, never mind handled one, then shoved the ammo in my pack and the gun in my waistband. And yes, I did feel like that was a stupid thing to do but to be fair, shooting myself in the ass was actually the least of my worries.

Back outside I wanted a proper look at my surroundings and the tall crane type machine sitting slap bang in the middle of the yard was perfect.  I started climbing, ignoring the zombies now crowding round the gate. If it weren’t for the obvious, it would have been a spectacular view from up there. I could see for miles, I couldn’t see the whole city because of the massive hotels and high rises but I towered of the residential areas and I could see the highway leading from the city.

My heart stopped and by blood froze in my veins. I felt dizzy and my vision swam as I watched the horror below. A swarm of the un-dead were mercilessly eating their way down the highway. People were trying to make a run through it, tiny dots of black against the desert floor. They were hunted, chased down, five zombies for every human being trying to make it out of that forsaken city. I could see what had stopped the flow of traffic, what had essentially killed all of those people. It looked like the front cars had crashed into something, I couldn’t see clearly, as it was dark and far away but my mind jumped first to a road block. The shapes I could just about see did look like they could have been concrete blocks.

I didn’t spend all that long examining the cause of the halt; I knew I wasn’t getting out that way so I started to look for another option. I won’t lie, I was really starting to panic but I tried to push it out of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand.

I knew that I only really had one option, the desert. I would most definitely need a car and some food and water wouldn’t go a miss either. I climbed back down from the crane and quickly raided the toolbox I’d spotted by the office before thinking about how I was going to get out of the scrap yard alive.

I really, and I mean really didn’t want to go back through the front gate. I went to the back of the scrap yard and tried to find another way out, I could try climbing over the top again but I couldn’t see what was on the other side because of the stupid corrugated sheets that were fastened to the wire fence.

It soon became clear that the only way I was getting out was the way I had come in. I was tense, my muscles were cramping up I was so scared so I took a second to shake them out and take some deep breaths.

I unclipped the magazine from the gun, after a couple of tries, and checked the bullets inside, there were ten.  I took the safety off and held the weapon in both hands in front of me. I took a deep breath, picked my target, and pulled the trigger.

It was louder than I’d expected it to be, and more powerful. I began to suspect the movies had lied to me when they had tiny, scantly clad women firing with one hand and not falling down with every shot. I’d get used to the power behind the weapon.

They were all dead, I didn’t want to go near them but it was my only way out. My ears were ringing from the loudness of the gun and I was fairly sure it had attracted more un-dead attention. I swung the crowbar at the padlock on the gate and it cracked, falling to the floor. I could hear groaning and clicking from my right so ran left down the street, keeping to the shadows of the buildings I passed.

I’d felt pretty safe in the scrap yard with a nice tall fence between me and the dangerous monsters outside, now I was out in the open I was terrified. I didn’t want to fire the gun again in case it drew more of them too me so instead I held the crowbar tight in both hands, ready to bash in some skulls if I needed to.

I finally turned into a more residential area, one that I had seen from the crane, and started looking for a car or vehicle of any kind. Almost every single driveway was empty, and then finally, three blocks over, I found exactly what I’d been looking for. A massive 4x4. The only problem was as soon as I stepped onto the street I heard groaning and then saw four zombies stumbling towards me. Why is nothing ever fucking easy?