Darker Days

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     ©JRF2015-R2020

Rachel opened her eyes and surveyed the room. How long have I been out? She wondered. The room was empty and dark. She mustered up the strength to get off the bed and stumbled to the door and into the hall. Last night is a blur, her memory of the occurrences last night are so vague. Rachel rubs her temple as she now walks down the hallway. By the looks of the house a tornado ripped through here. At the base of the stairs she notices the place looks even worse. "Vultures," she verbalizes her disgust. However, studying the room now, there isn't anything actually missing. The looter go-to items are still in their rightful places. "What is happening?" She turns on the TV but there is nothing. No news, no emergency broadcast, nothing.

        A car alarm sounds off outside. Rachel grabs her pistol and runs out to see what is happening. A strange looking man is staggering around by her car. She raises her gun and yells at the man. He looks up at her and growls before starting toward her. "Stop," she yells, "I'll shoot!" The man only growls again, chomping his teeth at her while drooling and keeps staggering toward her. She fires a shot hitting the man in the chest but he still keeps coming. Two more shots into his chest with no more effect than the first. This next shot caught him right between the eyes and he goes down. Rachel stands there in shock when a hand lands on her shoulder. She turns just as a woman lunges at her trying to bite her. Rachel pushes the woman away, but she bounces right back. The woman's intestines were hanging out of her stomach and dragging across the ground. Rachel feels vomit rising in her throat and swallows it back down, "no time for that Rachel." She whispers to herself before raising her pistol and pulling the trigger. The woman's head is split right down the middle by that bullet and her now limp body squishes to the ground. Rachel turns around to see more people headed her way. She runs to her door, glancing down to see a stack of newspapers. Reaching down she grabs the one on top before rushing inside and barricading the door.

        She leans against the barricaded door trying to process what she just witnessed. Rachel looks down at that paper in her hand. The front page mentions a strange virus. She remembers hearing stories of people acting strange, how they had some kind of strange virus. That isn't why she needed to grab this paper though, Rachel scans to the top to note the date. This paper was dated three days ago. The week before the date on this paper there had been only a few people with this virus. Earlier this week she remembers hearing about one or two an hour, or so it seemed. In only a week this virus had escalated to an epidemic. From what she was seeing outside, in the last three days it turned into an apocalypse.

Rachel is pulled from her thoughts by a crash in the next room. She looks to her right and one of those people is crawling through the window. She grabs the baseball bat lying on the floor and smashes the man in the head splattering his brains on the walls and window sill. She pushes his body out the window and onto the lawn when she notices the others coming toward her and the open window. She still has two shots left in her pistol. One shot to the head of the closest two and Rachel turns to block the window with the bookcase. It is heavy but it won't hold long. In the hall closet she found a hammer and some nails, that would help to hold the walking dead a little longer. She rushes through the rest of the first floor, trying to get something nailed down over the other windows as fast as she can, the best that she can using some of the smaller furniture to cover them.

The windows in the front of the house are covered, she is out of nails. The backyard is fenced in, so she hopes that will keep them from sneaking around to the back. Rachel enters the kitchen to try and find something to eat. The power is out so everything in the refrigerator is not an option. In the pantry, there are some cans of fruit. She grabs a can opener and a fork, opens a can of peaches and walks to the back door as she takes the first bite. Johnny laying on the floor with blood pooled around him, did not escape her vision. She didn't care in the least that he was dead. "Good riddance." Then Rachel sees her mother's body, head split wide open. Rachel sits next to her and a tear slips down her cheek. She needs to bury her, it is the right thing to do. Rachel needs to give her mother a proper burial. Even though she did try to eat her, that memory suddenly flashes so clear in her mind. She sets her peaches down and drags her mother's body out to the back yard and starts digging a hole. Rachel lays her mother in it and covers her up with dirt.

Back in the house Rachel grabs her can of peaches and fork. She didn't notice Johnny's body wasn't in the same spot as before. Rachel stares into the back yard as she takes a bite of her peaches. The back yard, thankfully is clear of any of the monstrous freaks that are in the front yard. She hears a snarl and turns to see him right behind her. Rachel scrunches up her nose, now noticing his stench. She drops the can of peaches. Johnny is just inches from taking a chunk out of her face. Rachel dodges him as he lunges for her. She grabs the skillet sitting on the stove, turning and swinging it. It connects with his face sending him backward but not knocking him down. He returns to chomping at her and growling. Rachel swings the skillet again, a little harder. This time he falls down and Rachel jumps on top of him swinging the skillet over and over again. Blood and brain matter flying everywhere.

Her mind finally clears and she falls backward onto her rear, scooting up against the cabinet and out of breath. It is a while before she musters enough strength back up to drag his body outside. Once inside again she locks that door and leans against it. It seems as though she is the last living person on the planet. A sadness falls heavy onto her but only for a minute. There has to be more people left, she has to survive long enough to find out. That means supplies. She needs to stock this place up and fortify it better. "I can try to go out tomorrow and get some more supplies. Those things have got to wander off by morning," She speaks as if someone is right there beside her.

Sleep tonight was not sound, between the dreams and the groans from outside, she really couldn't sleep. The most sleep she got was a few minutes at a time, when her eyes just couldn't stay open any longer. She was waken almost immediately by more groaning outside or car alarms as the stiffs out there didn't know how not to walk into stuff.

        Rachel found herself to be right in the morning though, most of the dead had wandered off and the few that were left weren't much of a challenge. She wishes now more than ever that she had some family around. This new world is going to be a lonely, quiet place if she can't find any other live people. At least she was close to a place to get supplies. The store around the corner was always a favorite of hers and now she seems to have it all to herself. Rachel grabs a cart and starts loading it down with all the supplies she can pack in. Food for sure, and more nails and a few more things she can use to board up the rest of the first floor. The cart is pretty full and Rachel decides to head back, hopefully even with it being so full, the trip back will be an easy one. And hopefully she doesn't run into anymore dead ones on the way back, she's already had enough of them. Unfortunately, there is no way to escape them completely.

The time seems to go by so slowly, Rachel has been marking the days on the wall by the bed. She rolls over this morning, grabbing her pocket knife as she has every morning since she realized she was alone in a world of dead and makes another mark on the wall. Counting the marks already there and the one she just made. "Twenty days," she sighs, "Only twenty days." Rachel was getting stir crazy days ago. She was locked up in this house day and night. Well, she didn't dare attempt to go out at night, the dead were way more numerous at night. And she only went out during the day if it was absolutely necessary, which there really isn't a whole lot of necessary things to go outside for when there are no more people around. All the loneliness and boredom though has her ready to go out and explore no matter how unnecessary or unsafe it may be. She needs to find some sign of life. Rachel makes it passed her store in what seems like no time at all.

She keeps this up for months with no sign of life at all. It is getting colder now and she is even lonelier. She has cleared most of the human piranha from the neighborhood so she can walk around fairly safe at any time of the day. Even though most days she hasn't got the will to even try, knowing she is completely alone. Despite her unwillingness to leave the house today, she does. Glad she forced herself to leave too because this time she sees a strange vehicle pulling into the lot of her store. There are people out there, but are these people safe? She ducks behind one of the abandoned cars hoping they haven't seen her yet. "Be smart Rachel, be smart." She waits until she hears the doors on that vehicle shut before she peeks over, through the window of the car she is hiding behind. There is one man walking to the opposite side of the truck and Rachel can make out a set of boots on the other side as she looks under the truck. She follows them inside, staying back far enough that they won't see her. She needs to watch them first, try to see if they are safe to approach, it has been way too long since she has seen real live people. But here they are and from the sound of their conversation, they sound like pretty level headed guys.