Day Zero
Chapter 7

Day 20:

Strader wandered down the streets of Seattle. He armed himself with a gun and a cross bow. He remembered joking with Jimmy about the types of weapons that they would use when the zombie apocalypse happened, with a cross bow you could reuse the weapon, eventually guns when you would run out of bullets. That was before Jimmy changed into a zombie and essentially wiped out half of the staff in the hospital while biting Rhonda and multiple nurses. Rhonda had taken him to the hospital because he was beginning to show the symptoms that Jimmy had.

The nurses and doctors had cleaned their wounds with alcohol and stitched the wounds…hopefully the alcohol swabs were enough. For some reason that doesn’t sound like enough to me Strader had thought, although he was thankful that he had already left the hospital instead of seeing one of his best friends go bat-shit and kill at least five people, including his wife.

There were just enough of the zombies running around to make him want to carry a weapon and the streets had minimal people who were armed the same way he was. He must have passed only a hundred people on the main street. The rest were in their cars only leaving to sprint to a store then sprint back. Others were peeping through their windows like soldiers who were looking over the edge of a trench.

Then he noticed them, three people wandering down the streets together looking absolutely lost as they wandered through the chaos, no weapons visible. Strader was curious, there weren’t many people walking, but dozens more were running around grabbing groceries in an attempt to wait it out as they locked themselves in their homes.

It was then that one of them cheered with delight and ran into the nearest grocery store. “Wait, Benjamin!” the young girl cried out. She was tall and thin with the build of a girl who could be a model if she was willing to loose fifteen pounds. Curly blonde hair was yanked back into a ponytail and she pushed her glasses up on her nose before chasing the older man into the store. The other man who looked just a few years older than a boy, pushed shoulder length slightly wavy hair out of his face and made an exasperated movement before running after them.

A yell of triumph was heard and Strader couldn’t help but wonder if they had managed to kill one of the creatures without using a weapon. He didn’t hear gunfire and there was not an obvious weapon on them he wanted to know how the hell they managed to do it.

He ran into the store to replace an obviously foreign man nearly dancing with joy with two six packs of beer in his hand. Strader saw the girl do a face palm motion while the other man muttered “ballocks” and some other curse word that Strader didn’t understand.

“Are you serious?” the young woman demanded. “What if one of those things had been in here?” she demanded. A movement from behind the counter and the ding of the cash register as it fell to the ground cutting the girl off as a zombie climbed over the counter and began to stumble towards the younger of the men.

Strader grabbed the gun from his pants and shot the monster twice before it fell to the ground unmoving.

The three of them turned quickly and stared at him.

“Thanks” the older man managed to say.

“I-is it dead?” the blonde asked.

Strader shot the thing in the head one more time just to be sure “It should be now” he said.

“Should be?” the young boy asked.

When the girl started moving cautiously towards the body of the former man, the younger boy tried to grab her but missed. All the men stood a safe distance away just in case she was attacked as she took two vials out of the canvas tribal print messenger bag that she had around her shoulders.

“What the hell are you doing?” Strader demanded. At least she is smart enough to sit in a ready to run position instead of kneeling next to it he thought to himself.

She pulled out a pair of latex gloves as she gave him one of those I am not freaking stupid looks. She pulled them over her hands and placed the vial to the head wound and managed to get some blood out of it. She handed it to the younger man who had just pulled a pair of gloves over his hands and was holding a piece of gauze to wipe the bloody residue off of the outside of the vial. He handed it to the man with slightly graying brown hair to keep it clean. He looked resentfully at the boy for making him put down his beer but, held the vial anyways.

She then looked at Strader. “What are the odds of you having a knife on you?”

Strader pulled out his Gerber knife and after opening it handed it to her.

He then watched in horror as she used his knife to pry up the part of the skull where the bullet would had entered. Strader found himself having to look away as she cut off a piece of the brain of the monster before placing it in the vial.

“You had better sanitize that thing” Strader demanded.

She once again gave him that obviously look again before handing the vial to the young boy who repeated the same process. She then removed her latex gloves the same way that Strader had been taught in his Wilderness First Responder course before reaching into her bag and wiping it down with an alcohol swab and poured what looked and smelled like bleach over the knife.

“It should be clean. Just don’t cut yourself or for any reason eat off of it” she said as she handed the knife back to him.

“Should be?” Strader asked repeating the same words that the younger of the three men said “Who are you three anyways?” Strader demanded.

“We’re scientists and we are trying to figure out what this thing is” the older man said as he handed the vials back to the girl and picked up his beer protectively.

“I’m Abigail, this is Riley and Benjamin” she said as she pointed to each man.

“Strader” he found himself replying. Damn, he had promised himself not to get too close to people…they tended to die or attack him.

“Riley you have two hands. Get two more 6 packs” Benjamin demanded.

“You can’t be bloody serious. We have to fight and possibly out run these things and all you can think about is your beer?”

“There is a high possibility of that” Abagail muttered.

Benjamin shot her a dirty look “Said by the girl who said that she would love to have a beer.”

“That was before I got attacked by a freaking zombie!” she cried out obviously wondering what the hell was wrong with this man.

Strader couldn’t help but agree with the young woman “I think you need to get your priorities straight” he said to Benjamin.

“If you were an Irish man, you would understand. It’s a shame there is not Guinness”

That was the moment that Riley mimicked the same movement that Abigail had just made.

“Looks like you three don’t have any weapons. Why didn’t you take any?” Strader demanded.

“Do we look like we know how to use weapons?” Abigail demanded.

Strader couldn’t help but agree with that statement. “I’ll help you three get back to wherever you came from” he said.

“Thank you! We are at The Infectious Disease Research Institute” Abigail said.

Strader grunted in response watching as Benjamin picked up his beer and proceeded to lead the way out the door. “Well come on then” he said.

The other three members quickly followed him out the door.

“How many infected have you seen?” Riley asked breaking the silence.

“Too many” Strader replied.

“How many have you killed?”

“Too many” Strader replied again as the four members stepped over the body of a zombie.

“Have you seen anyone change?”

“Yep.”

“What happened?” Abigail all but cried out.

“He had a seizure, a cough and was foaming at the mouth. He was irritable. Then he died. We performed CPR on him for about thirty minutes before he came back and attacked and then ate his wife”

“You were the ones who were attacked off of highway 70 aren’t you” Abigail asked.

“Ate her?” Benjamin asked.

“Then my buddy Jimmy got attacked, bitten and all scratched up. He was transported to the nearest hospital. He was sent home but four days later he was taken back, he had a similar reaction to the man who bit him. Then he attacked the nurses, his wife and the doctors”

“What did they do after the attack” Abigail asked.

“Sanitized the wounds and then stitched them up” Strader answered.

Abigail looked at him puzzled. He noticed that she had one green and one brown eye, that was interesting.

“Hmm,” she muttered to herself. “Did it work?”

Strader shrugged “I don’t know”

The four continued their journey climbing over the bodies of the dead both zombies and humans. Frantic men and women ran from their vehicles into stores and back almost knocked the scientists and the outdoors man down as they desperately tried to get from point A to point B before a monster noticed them.

The scream of a woman from inside a grocery store caused them to cringe and quicken their pace.

“Oh my God” Abigail stated as she covered her ears trying to keep from hearing the sounds of the woman who was slowly being eaten to death. Her screams growing weaker and weaker as she was being devoured, the same way that a lion ate a buffalo while it was still bleating for its heard.

“How far are we from the center?” Riley asked.

“I don’t know you three got here…can you not get back?”

The three of them stopped and looked at one another.

Strader rolled his eyes, his map and compass reading coming out. “Tell me some landmarks you saw” he said.

“Well we saw the space needle” Riley said.

“That thing is six hundred and five feet tall, of course you saw it” Strader said.

“We passed the Lake View Cemetery” Abigail said hoping she had helped in some way.

“Okay that is north of our location, but very close” Strader explained. The other three nodded and followed the man down the streets.

To Strader’s relief they didn’t have any more interactions with the zombies. He stopped at the entrance of the institute and was ready to turn around and leave before Abigail spoke up.

“Come with us” she said.

Strader turned “Thanks sweetheart, but I don’t think I am the scientist type”

“No…but you are the fighter type” Riley explained.

Strader couldn’t help but agree with that one.

“Please…odds are we are going to need another sample. You could help us all and possibly help save the world” Abigail explained.

Strader sighed “I don’t think that you want me on your team, besides science was never my strong point.”

“But you have seen what this looks like. You have interacted and killed the things, I think that you could help us a lot” Abigail begged.

Strader couldn’t help but agree with that one. And the look that Riley was giving him reminded him of his son…before he died overseas on one of the hospital ships.

“Alright” Strader explained.

Abigail gave him a dazzling smile while Riley and Benjamin smiled brightly and Riley stepped forward to shake his hand.

“Thanks mate” he said.

Strader nodded and followed the three into the research center.