Darren Wearmouth - First Activation

We entered the house directly into a small clean kitchen, and then continued into the living room.

“I think it’s empty,” Lea said.

“Why don’t we check upstairs for some bedding? I think we should all sleep in the same room tonight,” I replied.

Jack and Lea agreed, they were both too tired to bother putting up an argument. We started to climb the staircase slowly, listening for movement. Upstairs, were three closed doors which presumably led to the bedrooms and bathroom. The bedrooms were the most sensible place to look for our requirements. We took a door each and I entered a small room with a single bed. I took off the duvet and pillow, and then heard Lea curse loudly from another room.

I dropped the bedding and ran into Lea’s room holding my rifle in a firing position. Lea was staring at two dead bodies lying together on the bed. They were an elderly couple dressed in day clothes and holding hands, they didn’t appear to be long dead. Four empty pill bottles lay on the bedside table.

“Sorry, they freaked me out in this light,” Lea said. “I didn’t mean to scare you guys.”

“Don’t worry about it; we can take turns using the bedding I found in the other room.”

Jack edged past me and looked at the scene on the bed, “Christ, that’s awful. Let’s close the door and get downstairs.”

We filed back to the living area and sat on the couches in silence. With a dead couple upstairs, I wanted to find somewhere else, but we all appeared exhausted and needed some rest. I rose with a grunt and checked that all the doors and windows were locked. Jack and I pushed a large dresser and bookcase in front of the internal doors. There was no point taking watch and sitting up all night with the house secured, so we agreed to get some sleep.

I took a recliner, Jack spread out on the floor with the duvet, and Lea pulled a single sheet over herself on the couch.

Ron was probably plotting his next moves a mere ten miles away from us, and the second activation was due tomorrow. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was supposed to do about it all, and drifted in and out of sleep until a disturbingly vivid dream at dawn woke me completely.

In the nightmare, I was dressed as a groom and standing at the top table with the rotting corpse of a lady in a wedding dress sitting next to me. I had notes in my hands about to give a speech. As I looked around the large reception room, I could see it was filled with the rotting corpses of my family and friends, all in suits and dresses. They started to heckle me.

“Why did you get on the plane, Harry?”

“Why are you still alive?”

“You’ll be married to the dead soon.”

I came awake with a start, and rubbed my eyes muttering under my breath, “Fucking hell.”

“What is it?” Jack whispered.

“I just had a nightmare about getting married.”

“Loads of people have had that in real life,” he yawned.

Lea must have been awake, she replied, “Yeah, Jack, mostly women faced with the likes of you.”

We’d all managed to get at least a few hours of sleep, and I was feeling a lot better for it. Jack said his guts had improved, and he hadn’t vomited since we arrived at Luna Pier. I made my way into the kitchen to see if there was anything we could eat in the cupboards. The first thing that caught my eye was a can of baked beans; I smiled and shook my head. Behind the beans was a rare treat that I hadn’t eaten in years, and picked up the two cans as if they were heaven sent. We had our breakfast — spam.

I opened the fridge and grabbed a sealed, lukewarm bottle of coke, opened the cans of spam, found a couple of forks in a drawer, and proudly took breakfast back into the living area.

Jack was surprised and enthusiastic about breakfast. Spam reminded us of ration packs in the army, and we hadn’t eaten it in years. Lea appeared less pleased, but was soon eagerly chomping on large, pink chunks, of processed meat.

“Does it taste as good as it sounds?” Jack said.

“I’d prefer Eggs Benedict, a fluffy croissant and freshly brewed coffee,” Lea replied with a smile.

“Sorry, Lea, the kitchen’s closed,” I said.

After breakfast, we sat around discussing our next moves. Jack suggested driving to within a couple of miles of Ron’s house, and then approaching on foot, I agreed. It was inconceivable that we’d be able to drive right up to Ron’s house in an unknown car without being stopped by Genesis Alliance.

“Do you know where we can get our hands on some black clothes, similar to the ones that the patrol members were wearing?” I asked Lea.

“I know a couple of places in South Monroe we could try. They’re both around two miles from Ron’s, so if we walked from there, it would fit nicely with Jack’s idea.”

“With the AR-15’s, we’ll look the part. Anthony, Jerry, and three out of four of the goons we have come across so far, have been carrying them,” Jack said.

We spent the next hour cleaning and checking our weapons as best we could using items from the kitchen. We decided to leave the bolt-action rifle that Jack took from the killer at the airport in the trunk; he kept hold of the Ruger. I could tell he liked it as he kept pulling it out and inspecting it with a look of satisfaction. I strapped the hunting knife to the side of my backpack for quick release. If we needed any more weapons than we already had, it would probably be safer to retreat and put on the respirators and ear defenders, ready for the next activation. We would have to use speed and the inherent deception of our clothing to carry out a lightning raid on Oak Street.

It had already been light for an hour when we pulled back onto the expressway. We left at exit nine and joined Otter Creek Road towards South Monroe. Just before the road joined the South Dixie highway, we came to a halt. Our way ahead was completely blocked with a thick jumble of cars, stretching as far as the eye. It was unlikely that the vehicles had all ended up in this position on Friday. Lea had a theory that Genesis Alliance might have started tidying up the immediate area around Monroe and dumped the cars here.

The only option available now was to proceed on foot. We slowly made our way through the tangle of cars, and noticed that although some of them had bloodstains on the windows, there were no corpses inside.

As I began to consider where the bodies had been taken, we arrived at the junction. There, next to a mechanical digger in the field opposite, was a large pit. From our position, I could just about see the top of a pile of corpses that had been dumped into it.

I couldn’t speak for a moment, Jack was staring at the pit, Lea wept into her hands. Though it was a gruesome sight, it was simply a logical outcome for the bodies. Nothing surprised me anymore. Our immediate focus was to locate some black clothing; Lea led the way along South Dixie Highway to a retail plaza.

The area was quiet and had obviously been cleared since Friday. It had the look of any other small town pre-Activation, but on closer inspection, that evidence of violence was apparent. Blood smeared areas of the sidewalk and fragments of shattered glass gleamed on the road. We hugged the buildings as we proceeded to the entrance of a large store. Not a soul was in sight, but the fact that someone had actively been working here, and that we were so close to Ron’s house, was enough for us to maintain a very high level of vigilance.

The doors were open and we slipped inside. The shopping area seemed relatively intact, although the checkouts were spattered in blood. Lea led us to a clothing department and we looked around for suitable outfits to fool Genesis Alliance. Jack and I found some well fitting black cargo pants and black turtleneck sweaters. I tucked the hunting knife into the belt of my pants and covered it with the sweater, and then slung the rifle over my shoulder.