New Eden

An hour later, we're all sitting in the mayor's office in city hall. He had made it look almost like the Oval Office in the white house. I got a kick out of that. Frank was a great man, but from what I'd heard, he had been an egotistical prick before things went to hell. He came around though, and by the time I met him, was one of the nicest and most supportive people I had ever met in my entire life. Things begin to settle down and everyone is in their seats, looking at me with various emotions ranging from annoyance to concern. "Ok Mark, fill us in. In the year you've been here, you haven't once called a meeting. Ever, so if you're calling one now, we have reason for concern," Frank says. I take a deep breath, and begin.

"Yesterday we recieved a call from the Thorton brothers about zombies creeping up on them. They said five, and if we didnt hear from them by this morning, to go out there ready to kill them. We didn't hear from them, we left to check it out. I know that normal policy is that I don't tell you about what goes on during the outings, but this time its necessary. We found one zombie, and we killed it. The brothers were all dead. They wont be coming back. I made sure of that. But several things were off about the situation." A few eyebrows raise and I have everyones undivided attention. Bella is sitting next to where I'm standing and holding my hand. More for her comfort than mine.

"What things were...off?" Frank asks quietly. Steve is standing near the window, looking out of it. He and Barb had heard this on the way over. Barb had stayed back at the house. She'd had a massive headache. Steve wanted to stay with her, but she insisted he go. "Well, for one thing, I walked around the house, looking for anything that might give us a hint of what had happened in there. I remember passing the bedroom window and moving on immediately because the curtains were down. I couldnt see in. But when we went in, and took care of the one zombie, the brothers were lined up next to each other, nice and neat. They were chewed on, but not to the extent that most of these things chow down. There was blood everywhere, but most of it was from a struggle. It seemed odd, but when we went into the bedroom, the window was open, and the curtains were blowing out of it. I didnt think much about it at first, I was confused from there being only one zombie. Fighting them for long enough, you get to know their behaviors, the way they move, think, feed, everything. Not once have I ever heard of one who can climb through a window."

A small buzz generated amongst them. It was nearly midnight. They had been woken up, taken from their homes, and dragged to the city hall building, so if they needed time to digest the situation, I would give it to them. "Oh fuck no," I hear from steve. I look over as he opens the window and yells out of it. "Hey! Close the gate! Some are coming! Hey! Close the fucking gate!" He turns and runs out of the room, and I look out of the window. In the distance, by street light and starlight, I see a group of slow moving figures, and the first outpost, a handful of yards away from city hall, has no guards. The gate is wide open. "Fuck."

The council begins to panic, and I try to calm them down. "Hey! Stay calm, Spyder is closing the gate. He moves a hell of a lot faster than they do. Go back to your homes, lock the doors, and go into phase one security. Turn off your lights, stay on the second floor, and do not under any circumstances come out of your houses until I come to each of you, understand?" They calm down a little and rush home. "What shoud I do, son? I dont have a family, so I'm going to stay and fight if need be." Frank say's from his desk. I nod. Definitely a good man. "Frank, take Bella and go to the arms room on the first floor, grab four rifles, two shotguns and ammo for all of them." He nods and pulls a key ring off of his belt. Bella looks at me with concern in her eyes, and I kiss her briefly. "It'll be fine. Just someone new fell asleep at their post is all. Now go, get those weapons to us." She nods worriedly and turns to follow Frank. I turn and jump out of the window. City hall is two stories tall, with the window in the mayors office going directly to the roof. Once outside on the roof I slide down it and catch myself on the edge, lowering myself off the side and dropping the remaining few feet to the ground.

Once I get to the post, Steve is nowhere to be found. The gate is still open. "Damnit Steve, hurry your ass up, I thought you'd be here by now." I begin to close the gate and I see it. A flash of deep red hair disappearing around the corner of the old theater in the part of town beyond the gate. The group of zombies are still a block away, and with as slow as they're moving, it will be a good half hour before they get to the fence. I look around again, and I see Steve standing in the shadows outside of the gate, looking between two dilapidated buildings. "Hey, Steve, come on man, we have to close this gate." He turns around and looks at me, then speaks slowly. "Yeah, yeah, I just, I just thought I saw Barb. But she's at the house, right? She wouldn't be out here." Idon't tell him about the flash of hair. The only way she would get this far is if someone escorted her. "No dude, she's at the house. If she had come out here, you would've seen her go by, right? You were looking out of the window." Steve nods and comes back, helping me close the gate. We get it about three feet when another problem shows up. It stops moving.

I look down at the ground. there is a pile up of snow in the way, but the gate shouldnt be stopped by that. I look out at the zombies, they are still moving, but very slowly. "What is it, man?" Steve asks me. I start to push snow out of the way and I hit something hard. Pushing more away, I see a jacketed arm. "Man is right dude, it's Clyde Harris. The head gate guard. Shit!" I frantically pull him out of the snow. Clyde Harris is a small and lean man, but always with a smile for people. I quickly search his body, looking for signs of him being bitten. I find none.

"Ok, lets get the gate closed." I say as I stand up. Before we can start again, I hear Bella call my name. Turning, she is running up with boxes of ammo in her arms and both a rifle and a shotgun slung on her back. Frank is right behind her with the rest of the weapons. She comes up and I take the shotgun and ammo first, loading it up, then handing it to Steve. As I load the rifle, I hear a little fear creep in to Steve's voice. "Um, Mark, we might have a problem." I look up and see disaster. Standing behind Bella and Frank, some ten yards, are eight figures. I recognize them, the gate guards for both this and the next shift. They are standing there, and they are dead.

I slowly stand and hand the rifle to Bella. She knows how to shoot it, and is fairly good. I spent a lot of time teaching her. I pull out my revolver, and Frank quickly loads the second shotgun. "Steve," A soft accented voice comes from the other side of the gate. "Don't ye be leaving me out here." I turn and see Barb standing on the other side of the gate. Steve had closed it while I was loading the weapons. She was looking directly at him, her eyes following his every move. I look closer at her, and see blood on her lips. She is as pale as the snow on the ground. "Steve, lock that fucking gate, now." I say quietly. Barb looks at me and chuckles. "That wouldnt stop me, hero." Bella whimpers. "How can you see, Barb? You're blind." She laughs and I see her teeth, they are all sharp, and bloody. "No, Barb.." Steve says. I hear movement from behind and Frank calls out my name. I turn and the zombies that were behind us start to move.

"Bella, get down!" I yell as I bring the 357 to bear. She ducks down and I fire off all six rounds into their respective heads. Frank took out the other two. I handed my gun to Bella. "Reload please, honey," She takes it and begins to reload it from the extra ammo in my jacket pocket. I normally have a couple of speed loaders, but since I didnt think I would be firing it tonight, I didnt remember to bring my ammo belt. "Steve!" I shout as I bring up the rifle Bella had brought. He was staring at barb, who was simply laughing. I took aim at her and was tackled to the ground as I fired, Steve on top of me. "Don't shoot her!" He pleaded with me. "Fuck dude! Get off!" I yelled as I pushed him off of me. Barb grabbed the unlocked gate and threw it open. The zombies behind her began to move fast. "Oh shit," I said to no one in particular. I grabbed Bella and yelled over my shoulder to Steve and Frank. "RUN!"

I hear Frank yell and gunshots go off. I dont look behind me because I can hear them running. Zombies cant run. They cant speak. They cant climb through windows. Bella is crying but she is easily able to keep up with me. I look back a few times, looking for Steve. The last time I look back, I see him being held in the air by the throat. It's Barb who has him. I wipe away a tear, I dont have time to cry for my lost brother, but I vow to kill that bitch as soon as I can get my hands on her. We approach the residential area and see that the gate is open. No guards. I hold my hand out to Bella and she puts a loaded revolver in it. God I love this woman.

We run through the gate, we dont have time to close it. When the area was first set up, we installed an alarm from the school right inside the gate. It had been Barb's idea, so that if whats happening right now ever happened, just hit a big red metal button and it goes off, simultaneously alerting every resident in the area that we are being invaded, and possibly alerting every zombie in the area that lunch is on. It was a chance we had to take. I hit it as soon as we get through, and it goes off. We practiced it several times a week for the first few months, then it went down to once a week, then twice a month. Always in the middle of the day. It was close to midnight, but not as many houses turned their lights on as I expected. There were already a considerbale amount of people outside after hearing gunshots. "GET IN YOUR FUCKING HOUSES AND LOCK THE DOORS! GET ON THE SECOND FLOOR AND TURN OUT YOUR LIGHTS! NOW!" I yell several times on the way to our house. People listened I hope.

Once inside our house, I began to shutter all the windows. Steve and I installed them on our home, and several other homes as well. A thick sheet of metal was better than a wooden table any day. To be safe, we also boarded up the doors with wooden tables. We had several in the basement. It wasnt more than twenty minutes that we heard the moaning, and I remembered the worst part of being in that mall. The moaning. It never stopped. Ever. Bella heard it and froze. "Bella? Come on baby, we need to finish this," I said softly to her. She put her hands over her ears and sunk to the floor, in the corner. I looked around, we had the windows barred on the outside, shuttered on the inside. The doors were think wood, nothing short of a vehicle could break through them. The house itself was thick wood. It had originally been a cabin, but sheetrock walls had been placed over the cabin, making the walls excetionally thick while looking like a normal home. The only windows that werent shuttered and blocked were on the scond floor. Even with this new type of zombie, they would have to climb a sheer fifteen foot wall to get to the balcony on the second floor. Juding it secure, at least for the moment, I kneel down next to Bella.

"Bella, sweetheart, I need you here with me. Come on baby, come back to me." She stared right through me, like she was caught in a memory. I have had military training, spent a life with horrors and hardships. When this thing first began, the chaos of it was almost familiar, only on a much larger scale. After the mall, I quickly became used to it. My way of staying sane has always been accepting things as they came. I adapt quickly and quietly. Bella, on the other hand, had only training that I myself had given her. She had a happy, well adjusted life before this. Change to her was a slow thing. She had a problem adapting to new situations, and given one like this, she came to rely on me to set things right for her. The look she had in her eyes when I first saw her was of a scared animal backed into a corner. Now though, she was faced with something she had most probably experienced before. Hopelessness. I went to aspen once. Everything is packed into nice little boxes, even the homes. If there is a power outage, the people there are left without any contact with the outside world. She was there when this first happened. She was probably in this exact situation.

"Ok, Bella, look at me, not through me. look at me baby." I gently grab her head and stare directly into her eyes. "Can you hear me?" She nods slowly, tears streaming down her face. I had training on dealing with people in shock in the army. It was mostly used for gunshot victims, but I hoped it would apply in this case as well. "Baby, do you know who I am?" Her lips move. "M..Mark.." I nod and smile. "That's right, sweetie. I'm Mark. Do you love me?" She nods again, her eyes slowly starting to focus on me. She's struggling and the moaning is getting loader. "I love you too, more than anything, more than life itself. Do you want to get married?" She looks at me for a long second and I repeat myself. "Bella Verdandi, will you marry me?" She nods. "Good, good, I want to marry you too, but we cant get married if we dont survive. You want to get married? You have to snap out of this and work with me, ok? I cant do this by myself, I need you here with me baby. If..when.. we get through this, you and I are going to track down a judge or a priest, whoever it needs to be, and we're going to get married, ok? Are you with me?" She blinks several times and then throws herself into my chest. "Yes, yes, god yes I want to marry you. Please, I dont want to die, I want to live, with you!" She cries into my chest. I heave a sigh of relief and kiss her on the head. After a moment, the scraping starts. They're here and trying to get in.


"Ok, time to move upstairs. Come on, lets go." We get up and go upstairs. I have a small armory up here, only a few weapons, but a lot of ammo. We go into our room and I sit her on the bed after checking the windows. They're closed, and the door to the balcony is as well. I go to Bella. Ok, We have to try and thin out their numbers, there cant be that many of them. In the morning, we can gather up the survivors and decide what to do from there, ok?" She nods, and for a second I think she is going to go back to that dark place, but she looks at me with clear, if frightened, eyes. "I'm scared too, baby, I am, but you're tough, so am I, we can get through this." She nods and hugs me tightly. I hug her back and dont tell her our chances of survival. Unless we can thin out their numbers considerably, we dont stand a chance. We have enough supplies to last us for a couple of months, and enough ammo to take out a small army. What we dont have, though, is a single clue about this new type of zombie. Barb was fully intelligent, stronger than I ever remember her being, and no longer blind. I'm hoping a head shot will do, but she is smarter than I could ever hope to be, and she knows this house as well, if not better, than I do. She designed nearly all of the security features. If she gets in, its over.

I let go of Bella and grab a rifle from the wall. After loading it, I qucikly step outside onto the balcony. I close the glass door behind me. She doesnt need to hear the wailing. Looking down, the truck is where I left it, beneath the balcony. I always park there in case we need a quick escape. We would leave tonight except I dont have an idea of numbers. It's also not safe to drive at night. I know the town, and the roads during the day, but I dont have enough knowledge of them to drive at night. Looking over the residential area, I hang my head. I can see nearly the entire residential area from my balcony. The reason I picked this house when there were obviously nicer ones to choose from, was because it holds the highest elevation in the town. From what i'm seeing now, we might be the only survivors. Several houses are on fire, it will spread to the others with a decent wind. Including this one. That gives us about ten hours at the most, if the winds stay calm. I sigh again. Then I take aim. Six hundred rounds of ammo means I can kill six hundred zombies. Steve was always a better marksman than me. but i'm no slouch. Through the masses of zombies, I see small groups of four or five here and there moving faster than the others. Those will have to go first. I take aim, and open fire.