The Apocalypse

Chapter 9

Neil

Montclair, New Jersey




Neil Martin saw his first zombie…his first human zombie on the thirteenth of October. It wasn't much of a sighting. It was an old lady with a great deal of her left leg chewed off. She was grey skinned and scabby with oozing wounds. Her hair sat limp and greasy, her clothes were torn and hanging off of her, and her eyes were filled with a vicious, unnatural hate and as she wandered down the middle of Grove Street, people watched her from the safety of their homes. Neil clutched a broom to his chest until she was gone to who knew where.

On the fourteenth the army rolled through the neighborhoods and there was some sporadic shooting and Neil felt safe enough to make an attempt at his neighborhood Whole Foods. He was out of many of what he deemed were essentials and had a craving for salmon and bagels. Climbing into his trusty Prius he drove the near silent machine the two miles to the store and in that time he only saw three people.

They stared at him as if he was crazy and his friendly waves weren't returned.

He found the Whole Foods was not just closed, it was also boarded up. Hoping that the one in East Orange was still operating he drove southeast, passing closed shop after closed shop, only this too was boarded over and so with nothing better to do, he drove on to Newark, but never did make it to that city.

Broomfield Avenue was blocked by four military humvees that sported dreadfully large machine guns atop them. Along with the vehicles, thirty or so soldiers stood guard or slept in the October sun, which was unseasonably warm. Though the soldiers on duty had their guns initially pointed away down the street, most turned and leveled them in Neil's direction when he came up.

“Excuse me?” Neil said as one of the soldiers walked over after he had slammed on the brakes. “Can I get by? I'm trying to get to the Whole Foods in Newark.”

The soldier, a man with three little chevrons on his arm, gave a laugh of disbelief. “No, you can't. Don't you listen to the news? Everything from here east is quarantined.”

“I don't, actually,” Neil admitted. He tended to look down on people who watched TV, though this wasn't something that he would admit to a soldier. He tended to look down on them as well, but was smart enough not to do so when one was so near. “So those people who live in those houses over there can't come over here?”

“Nope,” the soldier answered. “And you can't go over there. That's how it works. Though why either of you would want to go in any direction is beyond me. You should go back home, you're not supposed to be on the streets.”

“And what if we need some stuff from the store?”

This was answered with a shrug. “I'm sure it's all being worked out. They'll let you know. Don't worry.”

Easier said than done.

Neil drove home, spotting his second zombie as he did, a very large one, wearing only a single shoe. It's lower lip dangled from a shred of skin, yet still it managed a fierce glare as the Prius scooted by. The sighting sent Neil's heart banging in his chest and when he got home he rushed to his living room where upon he immediately turned on his dusty TV. It showed nothing but static, which was an unpleasant shock. Like bagels and salmon, there was supposed to always be TV if one wanted to watch it.

Shut in his house as he had been, there was no way for Neil to know that only the day before, Navy Seal teams had been dispatched to destroy the broadcast studios of every news station in the quarantined zones.

The administration believed that the news coming from inside the Q-zones, as they were called, would only demoralize the rest of the nation if they understood the breadth of the issue. So, the Seals swooped down in their Blackhawks, planted a few hundred charges, shot some first amendment resistors and a number of zombies, then zipped out again just as the charges detonated.

Neil smacked the top of his TV set in annoyance and then went to make a sandwich, which he ate on his screened in porch, keeping his only weapon, his trusty broom, near at hand.

That evening there was much more shooting in his neighborhood and he woke the following morning, to what sounded like a battle. Wearing nothing but striped pajamas and a green terrycloth robe he went to stand on his stoop, facing west.

“That isn't right,” he said to himself, aligning his arms with the rising sun. The army should have been east of him not west. “Oh, no,” he whispered. Had they expanded the quarantine zone? Was he now on the wrong side of the barriers and the guns? Without a working TV, he had no way of knowing, so Neil went across to his neighbors, forgetting completely his broom.

A zombie, not fifty yards away reminded him. It was rooting around in the ivy next to Mr. Park's house and Neil froze out in the open.

“Neil! What are you doing out there?” Mr. Krauthammer asked from his second floor window. This caused Neil to practically squeak in fright and he grabbed the only weapon he could find that was near at hand—a garden gnome. “Hey, that's my gnome,” Mr. Krauthammer said angrily.

“Shh,” Neil said with his finger to his lips. He then pointed at the zombie, only Mr. Krauthammer couldn't see it because of the angle.

“Is it one of them?” Krauthammer asked without changing the volume of his voice in the least.

The zombie looked up from the ivy and stared at Neil for all of a second before he went charging across the fading green of Mr. Park's lawn. Neil squawked and then ran for his front door, which he had left open.

“That's my gnome!” cried Mr. Krauthammer.

Neil wasn't about to reply, nor was he going to return the gnome anytime soon. He sped across the sidewalk, leapt his flower border and made it to his front door safely, slamming it shut behind him and then locking it. And then he waited, listening to the zombie sniff at the door and then shake the handle, and bat at the heavy wood with its fists.

All the while Neil shook in fright.

Eventually the creature left and Neil tiptoed to his bathroom and urinated for over a minute with quivering hands. For once he didn't care about the mess, nor did he wash his hands. He didn't even flush. Instead he went to his own second floor window and called to Mr. Krauthammer.

“What do you want?” the old man asked. “You know you shouldn't yell so loud it attracts the undead.”

“Are we in the quarantine zone? I only ask because my TV isn't picking up any channels and that's got me a little shook I tell you.”

Mr. Krauthammer looked up the block and nodded with a grimace that was nearly a smile it was so twerked. “Yeah, they moved it sometime last night. It's now out to interstate 287 on the west and it goes north all the way to Nyack.”

Neil didn't even know where Nyack was which made him think it was far indeed. “So what do we do?”

“Stay indoors. Keep em' locked. And wait for all this to blow over. I'm sure the army is doing something. And the administration says that they don't expect the quarantine to last for more than two weeks. But then again they keep telling everyone it's Legionnaire's Disease, so who knows?”

“Two weeks,” Neil muttered. Did he have food enough for two weeks? If he cut back on his snacking and rationed what he had left, he probably had enough for three. “Well, thank you, Mr. Krauthammer. And don't worry about your gnome. He's in safe hands.”

Neil shut his window and then decided to get some work done. If he had two weeks to kill he figured he would put it to good use, after all his quarterly taxes would be due soon. He worked steadily until the sun began to set and then fixed himself a very small dinner. He cut his usual portion by a third, not realizing even then how significant food had become.


For both sides—the human and the zombie—food would mark the difference between containment and outright anarchy.