July 14^th, 1993

It’s cloudy today, but it hasn’t been raining so at least we have that going for us. Ruth spent some time in the garden and I helped her out for a bit as well, since it was interesting to learn more about plant care from a proper gardener’s perspective rather than a survivalist’s. Other than that, I decided to stash some equipment around the cul-de-sac instead of putting all of our eggs in one basket. Most of it is being kept in our home, but putting a few of the baseball bats here and there and having some of the non-perishables kept in another house means that if, god forbid, a house fire were to happen we wouldn’t lose everything.

We watched an episode from Miss Kitty on Pies in the morning, and some Woodcraft at noon. I feel like I could actually do some real wood working now if I had to, which I guess I could use to help mama with home improvements when this is all over.

The news was talking about chaos on the boundary line, people protesting and trying to get into fights with the military. Idiots, all of them. The only thing keeping them safe right now is the army keeping ‘them’ inside, and they want to throw rocks at the poor soldiers trying to protect them? Supposedly some people from inside got out, but I wasn’t interested in hearing anymore about that, if it was even true.

Tomorrow I’ll-

Evan jerks his head up, hearing something in the distance that distracts him from his journal writing. It’s about 4:20 PM at the moment, and there’s no reason for there to be any sort of disturbance. It’s not one of ‘them’, no. It’s a sound he’d grown used to ignoring having grown up in Philly, sounds that were entirely out of place in the deep silence that had overtaken Muldraugh this past week.

It is the sound of a helicopter. Maybe another military one? If it is another supply drop, that’d be great. It might even be something like them coming back and organizing a rescue for them! If those other people had somehow gotten out of the boundary maybe the military is making a move to evacuate anyone left behind?

So while Ruth continues playing her Airline Simulator game and makes all the numbers go up and makes air travel affordable for all Americans, Evan makes the move to check out a window. There’s no visuals on the first floor, so he heads up to the second and checks each side of the house in turn. By the sound of it, it was coming from the north or west, so…

There, he spots it, more north than west. He can immediately tell it’s not a military helicopter by profile even despite the distance. No, he’s certain it’s a Bell 206, which almost certainly means it’s civilian unless the police are still around and active. Which they probably aren’t, at least not with a helicopter.

Process of elimination means it is probably an ENG helicopter for some news station or another that managed to break through the no-fly zone and get into the boundary - a news helicopter that was no doubt riling up every single one of ‘them’ and drawing all of ‘them’ to its location from quite a distance. A news helicopter that was hovering somewhere around the school’s location. Great. It’s a good thing that they were done outside, because the last thing he wants to do is end up on the news getting chased by every one of ‘them’ left in Muldraugh because some news station decided that they needed to get the ‘big scoop’ by getting live footage of someone being eaten alive.

Evan is back down the stairs just a few moments later, re-entering the living room. Ruth glances his way and takes a break from her game to ask an important question. “Do you think that I should raise the prices for First Class?”

Evan has to consider that for a moment, since he’d been expecting her to ask about the helicopter noises or something instead. Should she raise the prices for First Class? Well, if someone wants to ride in luxury then they should definitely pay more, right? “Sure, plus it’ll let you keep the costs of business and coach down so you can get more fliers overall.”

Ruth nods, accepting his advice and turning her attention back to her game. “What was outside?”

“Some news helicopter,” Evan informs her, even as he starts to get ready. “We’ll need to stay inside and out of sight until it’s gone. It’s probably riling up ‘them’, but it’s over on the part of town the highway passes through.”

He fully intends to stay inside if it’s at all possible, but there’s always a chance things can go wrong. Their bug-out bags are already prepared if it comes down to it, but what he’s getting ready for now is protecting their home. He’d made the modifications to his belt and the hiking bag last night, or at least finished them; now he has the hooks and loops he needs to get everything set up. Ammunition he stores in pouches on the belt he recovered from the police cruiser, the revolver goes into the holster on his hip, and the shotgun is looped up onto his shoulder, carrying loop tightened to a comfortable point where it won’t fall off. On the other side from the shotgun he sets up the baseball bat, hanging from a loop sewed onto the pack and pulled up and over his shoulder if he needs to deploy it. Not the fastest way to get it ready, but this lets him actually carry it and keep it on him if he runs out of ammo somehow. Also attached to his belt are his knife, his hatchet and the police baton.

He had been worried about the weight of it all, but it was more than manageable. Uncle Dean and the scouts had taught him all about load distribution and how it’s more important than even the total weight of what you’re carrying. A person might struggle to carry eighty pounds in the arms for a mile, but with it attached and rigged to them in their pack and body it was infinitely more manageable.

“Are you worried?” Ruth didn’t sound it, but children could be perceptive. The last thing Evan wants is for her to panic. They need to be able to make clear and concise decisions without being blinded.

“Not especially. Just getting ready to clean up for after the copter leaves. ‘They’ will be riled up, and I’ll have to handle that,” Evan is quick to reassure her, offering a more ‘reasonable’ explanation for why he’s getting ready. It’s also going to be true if nothing goes wrong for them. ‘They’ will be more aggressive after all of this noise has them riled up, and they’ll be migrating to the west towards main street in search of the source of the noise even after it leaves.

“Okay.” Ruth nods, and then she goes right back to playing video games on the television. “If we have to run, I remember where the ‘bug out’ bags are.”

What was that you thought about kids being perceptive, Evan? Sounds like you’re choking on the sound of you being right.

“… You’re a smart kid, Ruth. Good job. It won’t come to that, but it’s good to be prepared.”

“Shouldn’t I have a gun too?” Ruth asks, canting her head as she does so.

“You are too little and don’t have any training. Both of these guns would knock you over if you fired them. Maybe after this is all over we can get find a smaller caliber and teach you a bit, but until then forget about it.” Evan does his best to be firm but not cruel. “Ideally, you won’t have to fight anything at all. If you do, then what do you do?”

“Keep away and hit them in the knees.” Ruth pats her bat sitting on the floor next to her.

“Darn right.” Evan nods, putting a smile on and keeping the optimism in the room as he does so. “Let’s have a treat tonight once this has all blown over. We’ve got ice cream left, how about we both have a big bowl full each?”

“… with strawberry syrup?” Ruth pressures for further commitment with the same tactics that have made her an imaginary air travel tycoon billionaire.

“If you want,” Evan agrees as if strawberry syrup wasn’t a crime against humanity and god alike.

“Aw, yes.” Ruth’s little fist pump made it all worth it in Evan’s mind anyway. Kids were adorable, no wonder his mom had had him.

Evan leaves her to it and moves to keep a cautious watch. There were only two ways into the cul-de-sac: one was the drive in from off the street, and the other was a small dirt path that lead into the woods behind Muldraugh that connected to a decently large pond that was used for fishing and the like. ‘They’ would come from one of those two entrances as a tall, well-built fence surrounded the rest of the location. The rear entrance was small and out of the way, and moreover he doubts especially many of ‘them’ would be wandering around lost randomly in the woods. A small handful, probably, but not a horde that could bear him down even in spite of him being as armed as he was. The real concern was the main entrance, with its sidewalks and a two lane road coming down it. A horde of them could pour in from that direction without anything to slow them down. Thankfully, he probably wouldn’t have to worry about it.

The thing that was drawing their attention was across town, after all, and-

What’s that sound?

A check of a window and chills go down his spine. The helicopter is starting to come this way. Not directly as if it had spotted him, but following something else. Could a horde have started moving this way? If so, what could have attracted them?

There’s nothing making noise in this part of Muldraugh-

Another sound. Faint, distant, yet familiar.

Artificial, crackling, low grade speakers pour out a cheery tune of a toreador marching out before a crowd. It’s one of countless songs that are no longer subject to copyright and thus can be used freely as an ear catcher by something ubiquitous with summer in America.

An ice cream truck.

Someone was driving an ice cream track, and it would be just distracting enough with that song to outweigh the interest the helicopter would draw.

“Is that an ice cream truck?” Ruth questions, detecting it immediately with all the keen hearing an ice cream hungry child.

“It’s the song of one. Stay quiet. It might be another survivor trying to lead a horde of ‘them’ out of town or elsewhere.” He tries to be optimistic about it. Tries to be. The road in and out of Muldraugh are both on the west side of town though, the highway that runs through it. There’s no other reason for them to be moving closer to to their position than for coming here.

Evan had already run into two psychopaths, what were the chances Muldraugh would have a third nut in it that cracked? They can’t be that good, right? He’s just being paranoid, he tells himself. He has to be, since there’s no way that someone could know that they were here and wish them ill, right? After all, he put a bullet into Spiffo, and if that nutjob survived the horde then he’d be in no shape to walk around.

The ice cream truck turns the corner, tipping up off of its back passenger side wheel as it came down the cul-de-sac – Spiffo in the driver’s seat, honking the horn as he accelerated towards Evan’s house.

A stream of words Evan is very much not supposed to say pour out of his mouth as the bastard and his truck slam into the bushes that line the sidewalk and gets jammed up and stuck... which means that there is an ice cream truck loudly blaring music in his front yard, and he can already hear the sounds of ‘their’ agitation.

“Ruth, stay inside and keep quiet! Lock the door behind me!” Evan orders immediately, swinging the shotgun off of his shoulder and pumping a round into the chamber. He feeds another into the magazine to replace it and readies himself at the door as Spiffo disappears into the back of the ice cream van. He can’t let them get to the house. It has too many potential entrances to defend and they’d be overwhelmed with a lack of options to maneuver and escape from.

As outlandish as the idea seems, Evan will be better off is he engages ‘them’ out in the open. If he does that he can break and run and lead them elsewhere as he needs to, or pull them into one house’s backyard and then jump the fence. He’ll have options.

“What about you, Mister Evan!?” Ruth’s voice, her face, both of them are showing more open emotion. Fear, and not only for herself.

“I’ve got these!” he reminds her, hefting the shotgun and taking a moment to pat the revolver on his hip. “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry!”

He can’t waste anymore time. He’s out the door and slamming it shut behind him, trusting Ruth to lock it like he told her to. He hasn’t seen Spiffo come out of the truck yet, but it’s possible he managed to slip out of the back and run away towards where the horde was coming from. Spiffo’s as dangerous as a dozen packs of ‘them’, but he can’t afford to ignore ‘them’ either.

That meant he was stuck between a rabid raccoon and a swarm of locusts. Both were plenty capable of killing him if he was careless… which just meant he had to not be careless. Spiffo couldn’t get into the house easily with the boards nailed over the windows. It’d be loud and take time, which their would-be killer wasn’t going to have since ‘they’ would be going after him as well as Evan.

Compartmentalize. His objectives are: To defend Ruth and his home, the elimination of the horde of ‘them’ that are attacking, and to drive off or eliminate Spiffo.

All he needs to do is keep those objectives in mind. Put aside everything else. His worries, his fears, the chill that grips his heart as more of ‘them’ than he’d seen even surrounding the school come pouring into the cul-de-sac. All of them are bundled up and thrown away. He was taught how to survive. He’s a survivor. He can do this. Uncle Dean, his mother, and Ruth are all counting on him. He can’t let himself fail here.

A centering breath and a few more steps towards the horde as he keeps a wary eye on his surroundings. ‘They’ aren’t fast or subtle, so it’s easy enough to keep a mental map and pacing of where ‘they’ are. The biggest concerns are Spiffo, or some of ‘them’ coming from the rear entrance.

Evan shoulders the shotgun, steadying himself and regarding the incoming targets. ‘They’ number well over a hundred at least and are packed at varying densities. Their appearances are mixed as well; some look to have been torn apart before reanimating, others likely turned into their sleep and look nearly pristine. The most telling at the ones with injuries that must have come post-reanimation. Injuries inflicted in a last, desperate act of defiance before they claimed a victim.

One of them has what appears to be a damn bread knife drive straight through their rib cage and out their back. Even focused as he is, Evan can’t help but admire whoever did that. He hopes they managed to escape.

Evan doesn’t let them get too close before he pulls the trigger. He’s learned about ‘them’ and their weaknesses, and through that can pick and choose his shots better. A shot to the center of mass can cripple one of them, or take it out of the equation entirely, but it wouldn’t do the same for the one behind them. The shotgun is loaded with 00 buckshot, which when fired releases 9.33 caliber ‘pellets’ in a tight formation. They’ll spread gradually, sure, but in under 100 feet you could rely on them staying pretty darn close together.

At least until they hit something.

The leader of the horde provides a demonstration as its neck and lower jaw explode in a spray of gore, along with the eyes and forehead of the shorter member of the horde behind them. Both bodies fall, and the horde continues to move towards him. Predictable, but that’s not a bad thing.

Pump, pick a target, fire again. Repeat. Check his corners for any signs of danger, pump, fire, repeat, check again.

Evan sets a tempo and follows it, remaining calm even as ‘they’ continue to swarm towards him. He backs up a few paces as he reloads the internal magazine of his Model 3000. He’d really like a bigger magazine to work with at this point, but it’s not like he’s fumbling the shells as he works them. Evan just needs to remember it’s four shots until he needs to reload.

The majority of the horde is moving to follow him rather than bothering with the crashed ice cream truck which is still blaring that darned song at full volume. That’s fine. It means he can know where they are and work around them. Fire and move, fire and move, taking his time with each attack. The horde is relentless, but not endless.

‘They’ are a threat only in ambush or if you let them get close. ‘They’ do not have guns or the capacity to use tools. ‘Their’ speed is limited to something more than a fast walk but less than a jog and ‘their’ agility is lacking. Know your enemy, know their limits, and exploit them. He has to give ground, and letting them herd him into an area he can’t escape from would be bad.

That’s why he baits them into following him into the backyard of one of the other houses. It’s through the front yard first as he leaps over the hedge of bushes and lands deftly. ‘They’ attempt to force their way through the bushes, climbing and shoving and tearing as more of them push from behind.

That’s good for him, since it gives him time to put down a whole gaggle of ‘them’. It’s three more reloads before ‘they’re’ close enough that he has to move again. This time he slowly circles around to the back of the house as he keeps putting shells into ‘them’. However, as much progress as he’s made in killing ‘them’, he can tell it’s been more than made up for by more of ‘them’ pouring in.

How long has it been? Two minutes, maybe? Two minutes into a fight for his life and he’s already used up how much of his ammunition? He keeps track of it, but there’s no number that is coming to his mind in the moment, just a vague certainty that it’s more than he’s happy with. Fifty shells and change, and even if he was eliminating at least two of ‘them’ per shot he’d still run out before ‘they’ ran out of bodies.

He can’t even guarantee that kill ratio either. Sometimes its one, and sometimes the injury isn’t enough to put them down. One of them had their head bent backwards practically one hundred and eighty degrees and it was still stumbling around. Losing most of the neck muscles apparently didn’t matter if the spine was still intact.

“Come on!” Evan howls, chest heaving as he works. “Keep coming at me!”

Overhead, that news helicopter circles them as they try to get the story of a lifetime. His lifetime, no doubt. Any of ‘them’ that aren’t attracted to the gunfire or the music will certainly see that fucking helicopter and be drawn by it.

The hedges aren’t even slowing them down any more, trampled and crushed under the mass of human bodies that pour over them. ‘They’ don’t care as they stomp on their fallen comrades. Some might stumble and fall, but the horde pours ever onwards.

Evan keeps shooting. What else can he do? If he panics, he dies. If he runs, Ruth dies. If he fights, he may still very well die.

But there will not be any footage on the news of Evan Daniels running and leaving a little girl to die. Not today, not ever. He’s a better man than that, raised to be that way by his mother and Uncle Dean. He’s smart and he’s brave, and that means other people will rely on him someday. That’s what they’d told him, and it was the truth.

He had to act like the gentleman his mother knew he was and be brave.

“Fuck you!” Evan spits hatefully, voice cracking as he backs up again in the face of the advancing horde. Whether that was directed at ‘them’ or the helicopter was up to interpretation. The hateful glances he shoots skywards suggests it’s probably both, and directed at Spiffo too, wherever he was.

He can’t afford to stay back here, Evan knows that. Fire, pump, fire until he’s empty. He can see more of ‘them’ pouring around the other side of the house even as the ones of ‘them’ who’d followed him around the far side keep coming. Time to take a leap of faith.

Evan swings the emptied shotgun up onto his shoulder and makes for the fence. He can’t be slow about this. He breaks into a run for it and swings himself up onto and over the fence – it’s free of ‘them’ in his immediate vicinity, but some of ‘them’ spot him from the front yard and let out a cry that will draw the rest. Some bodies slam into the fence and snarl from the other side… but it’s built too sturdy and supports dug too deep for ‘them’ to break through easily. Based on what he’s seen from ‘them’ before, they’ll go around eventually.

It gives him time to breathe and reload though, as well as give the helicopter a quick one handed salute to show his true feelings. He hopes his mother will forgive him for this behavior when she sees it. In his defense though, it’s an honest expression of his feelings towards them for their behavior. What kind of jerks just hover over someone fighting for their life and record it?

Triple N, apparently. If he had phone service in Muldraugh he would absolutely be planning to call in and complain. Hopefully his mom and Uncle Dean can do it for him. Hopefully he’s alive to see them do it after today, and it’s not his mother suing them for getting him killed.

There’s a lot of hope going around is what he’s saying.

The nearest of ‘them’, wearing the body of a middle-aged woman, screams as she advances for him.

“No solicitors.” Evan takes two steps to his left and then fires, taking her head off above the jaw and severely wrecking the face of the one behind her. Both go down, but only her is he certain of staying down permanently.

Heh, no solicitors. Uncle Dean would probably say something like that in this situation. He’ll get a laugh out of the story at least, hopefully.

The ice cream van’s driver-side door is open.

“… you god damned raccoon!” Evan’s temper snaps again, raging hatefully at the psychopath who drew the horde here, and he aborts his attempt to try and get back to the house as ‘they’ come pouring around the corner en masse. The horde has returned and he has no means to stem the tide. Fire and move, fire and move. Keep out of range and whittle down their numbers. That’s his best option and all he can do.

At least until he runs dry. He loads the last four shells into the shotgun. Realistically speaking he’s confident he spent them well. He’d certainly downed more of ‘them’ than he had expended shells and that’s impressive for his relatively limited firearms experience. A lot of it can be credited to the weapon and 00 buck being an extremely potent load for ammunition… and he’s just about run out of it, and they haven’t run out of bodies. Four plus one. He fires, pumps, fires again. ‘They’ are coming from both directions again and in such thick numbers he practically doesn’t have to aim. All he needs to do is spend his last three shots and then run again. Up and over another fence and this time he’s in the same yard he had his first fight against ‘them’. He gently tosses the now empty and useless shotgun through the broken window of the shed and draws his revolver.

The Model 10 feels good in his hands. Heavy. All sixty two shells of 00 buck have been expended. All he has left now is sixty nine rounds of .38 Special. He’ll have to try and make each and every one of them count. It won’t be enough for all of ‘them’, he knows, but it might be enough to let him fight the rest in distributed numbers or at least trick ‘them’ into following him elsewhere.

He takes up his stance, raises the weapon and holds it with both hands and gets ready. Rather than shooting and moving he intends to take all six shots and then move while reloading. Center the target, pull the trigger.

Bang. The weapon rocks and the orbit of one of ‘them’ explodes in a spray of viscera and grey matter. It falls and is trampled by the rest. He repeats his task again, five more times. ‘They’ are durable, and his aim being off by a degree matters so much more with .38 special than it did with buckshot. There are times he’s forced to put two rounds into a single target, times that waste ammunition.

He turns and spills out the spent casings and then loads in the next with as steady a hand as he can. He has to keep fighting. The helicopter is still above, the music is still playing, and ‘they’ won’t stop groaning, howling, screaming, crying out for him to succumb and join them.

“No thanks.” He clicks the cylinder shut, turns and goes through the pattern again. He and ‘they’ are both trapped in a deadly pattern with only two endings. Either their numbers wane enough before his ammo does and he lives, or they don’t and he probably dies. The last he’d seen a few moments ago the street more of them had been coming in. It was a smaller flow, a trickle rather than a tide but it had been enough to damn him if it kept up.

He hears something else. Screaming. A voice, young and high pitched with panic.

“Ruth!” Evan breaks into a run, abandoning his plan at the sounds of his housemate’s distress, and he sprints around the side of the house. Ruth’s garden lay as she left it, a little watering can with a flower painted on it set up against the side of the house. “Ruth!”

One of ‘them’ lunges for him from the corner of his vision as he approaches the front of the house. It receives a pistol whip to the temple followed by a shot into an empty socket for its troubles. He can see Spiffo now, dragging Ruth towards the ice cream van from the back of his house. The bastard, the miserable, flea bitten cur had used all of ‘them’ to force him away to take Ruth into his clutches.

“You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!” Evan’s hate consumed him as he slammed a shoulder into one of ‘them’ and shoved them aside. He fired a round into its head almost negligently, but it killed it all the same. As he feared, some of ‘them’ were coming in from the back entrance. He was near certainly surrounded and with nowhere near enough ammo to take them all. A good third of Muldraugh’s ‘population’ must have been drawn this way either on purpose or incidentally.

“Evan-!” Ruth reaches out for him only for a blow from Spiffo to her head to send her reeling and silence her. By the time Evan can get a bead on him Spiffo has Ruth between him and her and waggles a paw at him tauntingly. Evan can’t take the shot like this… not without risking shooting Ruth.

“Spiffo hates to leave a friend behind, but he’s got a big event to prepare for! So… bye bye, buddy boy! Maybe you’ll come with all the rest to Spiffo’s grand reopening!” The mad man calls out jovially to Evan as he throws Ruth into the truck and clambers into it himself. Evan could take the shot now… if he had the space to, at least. He doesn’t though, not as more of them start to come his way.

Not like this. God, please, not like this. If Evan has to die he’ll accept it. If it’s his time then take him, but please, not Ruth. She’s just a little girl. Evan pleads and prays even as his body fights to survive with next to no input: shoot a few of their number to make space and break through at a sprint – duck and weave around them to make sure he doesn’t get grabbed – make space, get space, steal space – reload spent cartridges – bring his axe out and bring it straight down into the head of one that was crawling along the ground and goes for his ankles.

The music from the van cuts out as its wheels spin and it struggles its way free from the bushes. Whatever damage crashing into them did, it’s not enough to stop it from working. The madman backs up and crashes into a pair of ‘them’, turns his wheels and then peels out and away. Some of ‘them’ lunge for the van and chase after it, and hopefully a few of them keep chasing it.

Spiffo escapes with Ruth in tow, leaving Evan behind and surrounded by a horde of them with no way out.

“God, if you’re actually there, I could really use an angel right about now.” His chest heaves, his grip on his tools tightens as he tries to come up with a way to survive.

Above and in the distance, a new sound joins the chaotic chorus surrounding him. Louder and more distinct than the news chopper above. Another helicopter approaches.

It’s just Evan’s luck, isn’t it?