El Paso Under Attack - 01 (9 page)

“If he doesn’t move,” said Dudley. “I’m kicking his fucking ass.”

“If those houses aren’t clean and safe when we get back, I’ll join you.” I added.

Then I picked the closest hardware store in the vicinity and told the kid to post where we were going in case more people wanted to join up with us.

It was a Lowe’s Hardware, and I wanted my chain link fence.

Fifty or sixty cars and trucks pulled into the parking lot of Lowe’s with guns a blazing. I hopped out of the Jeep and told all the rednecks with big trucks to load up on all the chain link fence that they could carry in the backs of their trucks, along with fence posts and whatever tools we needed to dig up the street.

As they went to work I ordered all the other vehicles to form a defensive line around the trucks and the building to protect the workers.

Amazingly, there were no accidents. More people were joining us, but they weren’t shot at like you’d expect. In fact, nobody shot their guns until I gave the order. We probably took out close to a hundred zombies, but only one large group of about forty gave us any real scares.

When most people get excited they lose hand/eye coordination. The big group of zombies rushed and with all the excitement, the bullets weren’t bringing them down. They were still rather far up the street, no pressure yet, so I grabbed my rifle and hopped on top of a big truck. It was then that I saw what brought such a large group of them together.

She screamed for help as soon as she saw me. Not sure how she recognized me from so far away, but I recognized her as well. And come hell or high water she was going to live.

Chapter 2

Ivana

People often wonder how this woman fits into such a rowdy crowd. At first appearance, she seems very sweet and innocent. She shies away from reporters and cameras, yet there’s a hidden strength in her that has left many speechless. Has anyone not seen the video in which a little girl that just lost both parents reaches out to her? Has anyone not seen her pick up that little girl and hug her for all she’s worth? What about the soft tears that gently fall as she whispers into the little girls ears?

She’s not a warrior. It’s her kindness that is legendary.

She stands around 5' 7". She has short black hair and the darkest eyes you could possibly imagine. Just about every man that I know has a crush on her, yet she happens to be gay. She has no problems admitting this or talking about it. It’s a part of her character, a part of who she is. She’s also very proud of who she is. The horror of what she went through was unable to change that part of her.

When I meet with her, she walks into the room with a shy smile on her face. She’s wearing baggy cargo pants and a tight t-shirt. Her sunglasses are pushed up on her head and she has a beer in her hand.

I take it that you’ve already spoken with Jaxon?

“
Yes
.”

He’s pretty intimidating. Are you okay?

“
It may take some time to process everything, but I’ll manage.
”

Good for you. I always have to warn my girlfriends before they meet him. Bit of a bad boy that one.

I laugh at this. It’s the first time someone close to him actually says it. It’s true, it’s obvious, but nobody has ever just come right out and admitted it. “So, you’ve been friends with him for a long time haven’t you?
”

I’d say about five or six years before any of the craziness happened. I met him about a year before he met his wife. If you think he’s rowdy now, you should have seen him back then.

“
That bad?
”

I’m not sure I’d refer to it as bad, but it certainly was entertaining. You never knew what he was going to say or do. He kept us all on our toes, that’s for sure.

“
How did you meet him?
”

He hit on me. It was the funniest thing, he knew I was a lesbian, but he hit on me anyway. It’s just…he did it in such a funny way, that I had to get to know him better. He made me laugh, still does. He has no suave moves, but my God you should see the girls chase after him. He just has that “it factor” I think. Women love him.

“
Yeah, I’ve read the blogs some of these women have posted about him. He does seem to be quite popular
.”

Even before he got famous he was quite popular. You should have seen how spoiled he was. Now, it’s just unbelievable. There have been talks lately of using a security detail to keep him safe from the women after he had a shirt ripped off last week.

“
You love him a lot don’t you?
”

Of course, he’s my boy. I mean, I know he’s married, but I can still love him in that special kind of way that won’t interfere with the way things are. Then again, he is the only guy I’ve ever met that made me consider going straight.

She laughs at her own joke and I wonder if she’s just a little bit serious. It’s obvious how devoted she is to him.

My fellow lesbians are going to have a fit because I said that. Argh! We’re losing her to the General. There goes another one.

“
You refer to him as the General as well?
”

It’s kinda hard not to sometimes. Ever since he used that screen name on EPUA, complete strangers that weren’t even there and who have never even fought beside him refer to him as the General. They even salute him with that crazy fist over the heart thing that they do.

“
I’ve seen that.
”

It’s still a shock to know that my friend has become the man he has become, but I was there. I saw everything. I saw him fall into leadership and I saw him bear it all on those wide shoulders of his. He’s earned his fame. He’s earned the recognition.

“
And what about you?
”

What about me? I was lucky, just like everyone else that found him.

“
Can you tell me about it?
”

Tell about which part? My personal experience or what happened after I was with Jaxon?

“
I’d like to hear both if it’s okay with you?
”

It might be kind of boring I think. I’m no fighter. My experience is probably very similar to anyone else who happened to be in El Paso when the zombies came.

“
That’s okay with me.
”

Well, I have an apartment on the Westside. I had been living there with my girlfriend for about three months or so. The night before the attack everything was very normal. We went out to the bars and I ended up drinking quite a bit. That’s why I slept through most of the morning. I was hung over.

I had no idea anything was going on until Jill (my girlfriend) woke me up. It was about thirty minutes or so before the TV went dead. The reports were coming in about savage people attacking anyone they could catch.

The madness was spreading. A few images managed to find their way onto the screen. The people didn’t look right. No, they didn’t look right at all. They looked dead. They looked like they were dead and still moving around.

Then, the reports started coming in about how the savages were eating people. Eventually they announced some website that we could go to and after that, all the stations went off the air.

Jill was terrified. When we started hearing screams around our apartment complex, she stopped speaking altogether. She was just shaking all over. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close. I tried to talk her down. I even shook her a little bit.

Nothing.

I couldn’t reach her. She just went into quiet hysterics. To be honest, I had no idea what to do. The only thing I could think of was to call my Mom. Of course all the phones were dead at that point.

I didn’t feel safe in the apartment. I felt that we needed to move. I had no idea what the roads looked like, but I had a full size truck and I was pretty sure that it could get us where we need to go.

“
Which was where?
”

My Moms…it was still all I could think of.

I was able to move Jill. She didn’t put up a fight. We walked to my truck slowly. I was so afraid. I can’t even explain to you how terrified I was. The day was so humid and I was covered in sweat. I could hear the screams of rage and the screams of terror coming from all around me. I saw my neighbor chase his wife down into some bushes and begin biting her. It was like walking through some sort of hell.

I continued to pull Jill down the maze of sidewalks that make up an apartment complex. I would crouch and hide with her whenever I saw movement. Most of the time, I tried not to look. I didn’t want to see people being killed. It was madness, but so far we were safe. We managed to run and hide, run and hide.

And then they saw us.

He came from the side. I don’t know who it was; I’d never seen him before. We were moving forward past an apartment with an open door and he came running out after us.

I saw him immediately.

We ran.

He followed.

Caution was blown to the wind. We had nothing to lose. We ran as fast as we could to the truck.

We never made it. We damn near ran into a group of them. I don’t know how many there were. I didn’t stop to count. They were all crouched around a red and wet mass of something that used to be human.

Most of the body was already devoured. They looked up at Jill and me and immediately gave chase. We barely even froze for a second, before we turned to the left and headed down a walkway as fast as we could.

There was no way we were going to make it to my truck. There were too many of them chasing us. It was go back to the apartment or die.

Part of me was worried about being stuck in our apartment, but I had hopes that the police or something would be able to sort this whole mess out soon and come to our rescue. That’s the hope that I held onto.

I didn’t have much time to think about anything else with a group of zombies chasing us. It didn’t take us long to reach the apartment. We were inside and locking the door before any of them neared the patio.

We were lucky. Another twenty feet or so and they would of had us. Zombies don’t seem to tire out like people do. I don’t know why.

Another thing we were really lucky about was the lack of a sliding glass door. I remember when we moved into the apartment complex that we were pretty upset about having one of the few apartments without the sliding glass door on the patio. They would have broken through a sliding glass door in seconds. All our apartment had were those tiny little windows. They couldn’t fit through them, but they tried anyway. They broke them apart immediately and reached out for us through the broken glass. I’ve never been able to get that image out of my mind.

We were safe, so aside from being trapped, we really were pretty lucky.

Jill began to scream. I wasn’t sure if that was any better than her self induced coma, because the noise she was making was sure to attract even more of them. She even started to tear out her hair by the handfuls.

I tried to comfort her. I tried to wrap her in my arms so she couldn’t hurt herself, but in the end I think I just ended up getting the wrong end of the stick. By the time she calmed back down into the quiet hysterics, I was covered in scratches and bruises.

I managed to move her into the closet with me. I was hoping that if they couldn’t see us anymore they’d go away. I grabbed my laptop on the way and closed the door. It didn’t work, they continued to scream and reach for us through the broken windows even though we were out of sight.

Eventually, we fell asleep.

I don’t know how. I guess we were just so exhausted from everything and hiding in the dark closet made us feel just a little bit safe. Even the screams were somewhat muffled by the walls.

I don’t remember what time it was when I woke up. It was dark out, I know that. I chanced a peek out the closet door.

They were still there. They were still trying to get inside. Yet, their screams had been replaced by moans and low guttural growls.

I guess they had calmed down a little bit, it just took a while. I was positive that if they saw us again they’d go back into a full frenzy.

Jill was still asleep. I didn’t want to wake her. I wasn’t sure how she’d react and I didn’t want her to start screaming again. I didn’t want the frenzy outside to start back up.

I fired up my laptop. I couldn’t remember the website that the news stations were talking about, but it wasn’t hard to find.

EPUA.

It was there that I learned what was really going on. It was there that I learned that all forms of communication aside from the internet were shut down. It was there that I learned that El Paso was sealed off. It was there that I learned that the dead had risen. It was there that I learned that help was not coming.

I cried for hours. I cried and cried and cried. I was going to die soon. They’d get in somehow. I just knew it.

Eventually, I calmed down enough…no, that’s not true. Eventually, through the tears and quiet sobs I started to read the messages that people were posting.

I read the horror stories. I read the fear and sadness in their words.

I didn’t feel so alone anymore.

“
That website helped a lot of people get through the bad times.
”

I agree. It helps to know that there are people out there that are going through the same things you are. Even though we were isolated and stuck in an apartment closet, I was able to connect with others that were also trapped.

I mean, don’t get me wrong…I truly wished that I was anywhere but where I was. Paris was especially sounding pretty damn good.

“
Did you talk to any of the other survivors on EPUA?
”

I didn’t. I just read what they posted. I read and read and read. I barely ate at all. The one time I left the closet to grab food, I was spotted and the frenzy began again. The screaming and banging and thrashing, it was horrible. It took hours for them to calm back down again.

Jill wasn’t responding to anything anymore. She just laid there. It was like her mind had shut down.

I had headphones and music on my laptop. I played the music loud and every so often I would feed the both of us. She would barely eat. I was losing her. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did.

I had reached a sort of calm as the days and nights passed. The outrageous fear was gone. It was replaced by an inevitable knowing that I wasn’t going to live much longer. I didn’t want to starve. I had pills. As soon as Jill was gone, I was going to join her. I didn’t think it would be very long.

I don’t know how many days and nights had passed exactly. The time seemed to bleed together. I slept and read the posts on EPUA. I could do nothing else. I was just waiting for the end.

And then, I heard about the General.

I never noticed it when Jax was trying to reach Georgie. There were thousands of people trying to reach friends and family and I must have been asleep when Jax and Georgie actually began to talk, but afterwards, when I woke up, I was able to read all the stories people were talking about.

“
And you had no idea who the General was?
”

None, all I knew, was that somewhere out there, a man was fighting. Somewhere out there, a man was saving people. In the cold, dark and lonely night, there was a hero.

My heart began to beat again. My eyes grew wide. It couldn’t be true. It was too much to hope for. And yet, despite myself, I began to hope. I wasn’t ready to give up. I was excited. Who was this man? Was he sent by the government?

I sat straight up and read and read and read.

Finally, Tito was there. His apartment is just down the street from mine. He was trapped just like Jill and I.

“
You recognized Tito?
”