Surviving Amid the Zombies Read online

  The Most Uncommon Cold IV:

  Surviving Amid The Zombies

  Jeffrey Littorno

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  The Most Uncommon Cold IV:

  Surviving Amid The Zombies

  by

  Jeffrey Littorno

  Copyright © 2014 by Jeffrey Littorno

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photographic (photocopying), recording, or otherwise – without prior permission in writing from the author Jeffrey Littorno.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Dedication

  This book is only possible because of the support and encouragement I receive on a daily basis.

  Thank you to Melinda Fox and Carole Guffanti-Notley for your suggestions.

  Thank you to my wife Gyeyeol for putting up with my distraction and obsession throughout

  the whole process.

  Thanks to you, because if you are reading this, you give me a reason to keep writing.

  Chapter 1

  Christina lay huddled on the couch and still shaking beneath a red blanket with which Kelly had covered her. Lawrence slowly sat down next to her feet.

  “How’s my big girl?” He clearly struggled to keep his voice cheery. She gave no response other than continued shaking.

  Lawrence slowly reached over and touched the blanket.

  At the instant his fingers made contact with the fabric, the shaking stopped and the blanket flew open. The tiny arms circled around Lawrence’s neck before he has a chance to move away. The big cop instantly stared into a pair of red, tear-filled eyes.

  “Those things went all around… and… and… I felt so ascared,” Christina sobbed. “You didn’t come to protect me, Lawrence.”

  She pushed her face into his chest while the rest of us stood still and watched.

  Kelly moved first as he charged toward the couch. Before he got within a couple of yards of the couch, Taylor stepped in front of him. The tall maintenance man towered over the teenager. I moved forward ready to break up the confrontation, but my concern was unnecessary.

  Taylor drew himself to the tallest possible form. Every one of his muscles appeared to be tensed, and he clenched his fists in front of him. The sight of the boy seemed to freeze Kelly. The two of them made eye contact and glared at one another for a few seconds. Then the rage that had taken hold of Kelly just moments before evaporated and his shoulders sagged. He turned slowly away from the couch and dropped his body into a chair on the other side of the room.

  Everyone continued to keep an eye on Kelly for a few moments before Lawrence stood and lifted Christina into his arms. He looked over at Kelly and nodded. Taylor and I followed him out of the room.

  Things remained a bit tense between Kelly and the rest of us after that.

  I began wondering if we should start venturing out into the neighborhood. Lawrence and Taylor both saw little reason to leave the safe world we had created.

  It was not that I had any great desire to put myself or any of us in danger again, but I did have a need to know what exactly was going on outside of our building.

  The conversation went the essentially same

  way every time.

  “For all we know, things might be getting back to normal, and there’s no need for us to be holed up like this.”

  To such comments, Lawrence always replied, “Stick your head out the window. Nothing’s close to normal.”

  “There might be something we are able to do… something to help,” I would offer.

  “Sure, a burnt-out cop, a newspaper reporter, a juvenile delinquent, an old hippy, and a little girl team up to save the world! Stop me if you’ve heard this one before!”

  “I’m just saying that we might be able to do more than just hide out and wait,” I would respond, trying not to sound whiney.

  “From what I’ve seen, staying put and surviving is a pretty good idea these days,” Lawrence would comment, knowing he had won the argument. “Anything important will be on the radio or television.”

  I realized that he was right, but it did not change my mind about wanting to know what was going on in the world. I wanted to learn more than what we could see from the windows, and the emergency broadcasts only provided the information deemed absolutely necessary. Blame it on my inquisitive reporter mindset, but I wanted to find out every detail I could in order to be able to decide for myself what qualified as important and what did not.

  Since we had finished exploring the building and the unpleasant task of disposing of the bodies, there was not a lot to keep us busy. Without something else to keep it occupied, my mind could not help but to travel outside and wonder about the state of the world.

  Kelly spent most of his time holed up down in the basement. Lawrence and I went there a few times and watched the news with him. The incident with Christina was never mentioned, but the tension remained. I kept an eye on the maintenance man for any signs of the strain easing, but all I only saw furtive glances toward Lawrence that revealed smoldering rage.

  We had been in the building for about three months, and I was getting restless. The typical day started with breakfast in the apartment. After that, Lawrence and I usually left Taylor and Christina to walk through the building and check for any changes especially around doors and windows. We did that even though we had never found any sort of change. Still, it does not hurt to be cautious. Once done, we would either gather things from the other apartments or spend time with Kelly.

  I should have been thankful for the relative calm of the routine, but I was not. I could not get past the sense that I was hiding from the world.

  One afternoon, after making our normal rounds, I headed up to the roof to have a look around. I had gotten into the habit of spending more and more time by myself looking out at the surrounding area. I had found a little portable radio in one of the apartments which I brought with me. The roof was an open flat top with scattered satellite dishes and an older television antenna. It did not appear that anyone had been on the rooftop for quite some time.

  On the first day I came up to the roof I had found someone’s stash of nudie magazines. Judging by the crushed soda cans and cigarette butts scattered around the area, I guessed the magazines belonged to a group of boys. I pictured three of them, ranging from ten to thirteen years old. One of the boys was sitting Indian style with the magazine on the cement in front of him. Another was leaning against the short wall bordering the roof and trying to appear cool as he practiced blowing smoke rings. The third boy was on his back holding a magazine suspended over his face.

  “This chick’s boobs kinda look like Brenda’s,” he said. “I wonder if they feel the same.”

  The boy who had been perfecting his smoke rings started to move forward when the huge laugh from the other boy stopped him.

  “What a loada crap! You never got any-where near touching any boobies, except maybe your own,” the third boy roared.

  “Just ask yer sister!” The kid on his back yelled, and the laughter stopped.

  Even a rooftop with girlie magazines, cigarettes, and pop, saying something about a guy’s sister was crossing the line. The two boys glared at each other as they slowly got to their feet and moved quickly close to one anoth
er.

  My imagination always cut out at that point leaving me alone on the roof. So I would sit up there many afternoons trying to get anything besides the hiss of static on that radio and looking out over the streets below. I never got anything more than noise on the radio, and the streets below were empty. Of course, I had nothing but time, so I spent some of it looking out over a deserted city. Actually, the streets were not always abandoned. Occasionally I did spot some movement.

  The first time I noticed someone walking in the shadows near the building my excitement got the better of me and I shouted without thinking first. As soon as the sound left my mouth, I realized my mistake. The thing jerked around and looked up at me. Even from so far away, I was shocked by the pale skin of the face long face and the dead eyes staring up at me.

  In a matter of moments, the single shell became a group of about eight. I wondered how they had been signaled that there was a reason

  to come to the area. After just a minute, the mob had grown to about twenty shells. The things seemed to be more agitated and focused than ever. Their movement was jerky as if they were being pulled against their will. I am not sure exactly how long I watched them, but it was quite a while. It finally occurred to me that my appearance was what was stirring up all the shells. By now, they had moved to the sidewalk below me and were banging on the walls of the first floor. Although we had reinforced everything at the ground level, it was not smart to be drawing attention to our building. I had no idea whether the shells would remember the location later, but it did not make sense to take the risk of having them return.

  I moved away from the edge of the roof. There was a spot in the corner of the roof where I sat down and watched the street below without being seen. After a few minutes, the shells became calm and shuffled around the sidewalk near the building. After about thirty minutes, the street was again empty.

  The things clearly traveled in packs and shared some sort of communication abilities. Did they simply rely on sight and sound, or was there something more? I smiled at the thought of studying shell psychology, but that is precisely what I was doing. But then again, the term psychology referred specifically to the study of mental activities and related behavior. Could the term be applied to something that seemed to have very little in the way of complex cognitive operations?

  On most days, I would simply sit there on the roof listening to the hiss of static from the radio. The still of the landscape as far as I could see covered everything with a surrealistic mood.

  With so much time to just sit and think, I certainly should have realized that the world we had built for ourselves was about to crumble.

  Chapter 2

  “We need to get more gas for the generator,” Kelly said.

  I had opened the door of the apartment at six thirty on a Tuesday morning to find him standing in the hallway. It was certainly a surprise since he had not been to the apartment after the night that Lawrence had almost killed him. But there he was outside the door on this Tuesday morning.

  My surprise must have been clear, as he said again, “We need to get more gas for the generator.” After a moment, he added, “I usually do it myself, but this time we need to go further to get it.”

  “I want to go,” Taylor offered as he pushed closer to the doorway.

  “Nobody’s goin’ anywhere!” Lawrence called from behind me.

  We all automatically looked toward the voice.

  “We need to get more gas for the generators,” Kelly said once again.

  “Where do you usually get it?” Lawrence asked.

  Kelly was clearly irritated at being questioned and answered quickly, “I usually get it at the supply store at the end of the alley, but it’s gone now.” He glared at Lawrence for a moment before turning his eyes toward me. “There’s another store and a gas station a few miles east of here. I would just go myself, but I figured the more people to carry the fuel the better off we’d be.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense. We should get as much as we can to store. That way we don’t have to worry about gas for a while.”

  “Let’s go then!” Taylor’s enthusiasm was clearly not shared by Lawrence.

  “We ain’t gonna just rush the hell outta here without thinking about it first.” The cop’s suspicion was obvious as he continued, “Just makes me wonder why you never mentioned this before.”

  Kelly let out a sigh. “If you don’t want to have power that’s fine. I didn’t realize that the supply of gas was getting so low. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it before now.”

  “If we want to have lights and stuff, we need to get some gas,” Taylor said almost pleading with Lawrence.

  After a second, the big cop chuckled, “Damn,

  I never realized you were so ascared of the dark.” He smiled at Taylor before continuing, “Of course, I like having power. It’s just that I don’t think it’s smart to go charging off half-cocked to search for gas.”

  “Have you got a better idea?” Kelly asked. “Like I said, there should be some gas at that station just a few miles away.”

  “That sounds like a plan to me,” Taylor added with enthusiasm. “We can just swoop in there, get the gas, and swoop back out!”

  The boy’s energy was nothing if not contagious. “Sounds like a whole lot of swooping!” I laughed.

  The laughter coming from Lawrence held no humor. “Well, I suppose if you really want to go, then go ahead.” He gave Kelly a long look as if trying to figure out what the maintenance man had planned. “Somebody has to stay here with Christina. So I guess that’ll be me.” He flashed a wide grin.

  Kelly started to say something but then squeezed his mouth closed. Lawrence did not miss this.

  “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have your help in case we get into trouble?” I asked him.

  He shrugged and answered, “I think you guys can handle it.” With that, he turned and walked back into the living room where Christina was waiting for him with one of her books.

  Taylor and I exchanged expressions of confusion. Kelly was staring after Lawrence as if he had just been insulted.

  “What the hell was that all about?” I asked looking at Kelly.

  He shook his head and said, “Well, looks like it’s just the three of us.”

  “No problem. Let’s go!” Taylor had lost none

  of his enthusiasm. “We can do this without him.”

  “Well, let’s go get some gas!” I offered with all the energy I could muster.

  Even as we followed Kelly back down to the basement to collect the empty gas cans, I could not help thinking that I had not been out of the building without Lawrence for several months. Doing so now felt very strange and a bit ominous. The fact of the matter was that having Lawrence with us would make us safer. The bad blood between Kelly and the big cop had to take a backseat to staying alive.

  We were almost to the back corner of the basement which housed the generator when I said, “Look, Kelly, I understand that you’re pissed at Lawrence, and I’m sure the hell not gonna say you don’t have a good reason to hate the guy.” Kelly was silent except for the puff of air he let out at my words. “Anyway, as ridiculous as it sounds, you have to put all that stuff aside. We need him. The only thing that matters right now is staying alive.” I paused for a moment to find him looking at me with curiosity.

  “That sonuvabitch put a gun in my mouth! You saw that!” His voice was shrill as if he had lost any shred of control. “He was ready to splatter my brains on the floor! Do you think I want to be anywhere near that prick? Do you?”

  I waited a few seconds to reply in the hope that Kelly would calm down a little.

  “No, of course, I don’t think you or any of us want to be anywhere near that prick.”

  Taylor giggled at my response. As odd as it seems, the sound drained a lot of the tension out of the room. Kelly did not actually smile, but his face loosened from it previous scowl.

  “But even though we don’t want to be around
him, we need him around,” Kelly said. “It’s like my brain knows you’re right and all, but my gut still wants to tear the guy apart.”

  The laugh that followed rattled my teeth and should have sent me some kind of warning about what was going to happen, but it did not. I simply listened uncomfortably to the high-pitched sound that erupted from the maintenance man. Perhaps just as disturbing was the sight of Kelly’s instant change from rage to laughter.

  I was both startled by and thankful for Taylor’s question. “So where exactly are we going?”

  Kelly turned toward the boy and regarded him as if seeing him for the first time. “Well, like I said, there’s a gas station and a supply store across from each other three miles or so from here. I figure we oughta find some gas there. But we need to get the cop to go with us.”

  “He’s right,” I commented. “Sorry, Taylor. I know you keep getting stuck inside, but this time we need him along in case we run into any of those things.”

  Taylor’s disappointment could not have been more clear. “Oh, c’mon! We can do this without him. He’ll just slow us down,” he pleaded.

  “Who’s gonna slow you down?” The voice from the top of the stairs made us all jump.

  Moments later, Lawrence and Christina walked down the stairs.

  “It’s very stinky down here!” The little girl complained. She looked even smaller dressed in a puffy pink jacket.

  “You’re right, honey, but we’re only gonna be here for just a minute.” Lawrence looked at Kelly and continued, “I couldn’t let you guys go out and have all the fun.”

  The tall maintenance man grinned in response.