Mark Clodi - About a Woman, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

Dora said quietly, "I think I am going to be sick dears." She turned away from the television.

They were all silent for a while with Mike and Paige continuing to watch the coverage until the helicopter flew away from the scene and back towards Kansas, along interstate highway seventy. The mobs there were only slightly smaller than the ones along the other highway and the first of them was a good fifty miles from Denver and heading their way.

The announcer stopped relaying the film from the helicopter and went back to the news desk where they switched to scenes from California, which made Denver look like a walk in the park. The newscaster did warn them about the disturbing scenes before he started relaying them and Dora had time to turn away before they were shown. Paige couldn't help but watch out of the corner of her eye and Mike just ground his teeth and viewed them head on.

After a while he turned the television back to the local channel, which had picked up the film from the national news about Denver and was replaying it with the more gruesome parts blurred out. The newsmen Jim and Diane were looking harried, like they hadn't had a break since that morning, which they probably hadn't. They had lost touch with Ned and their remote news van and were filling the airwaves with warnings from the local government for people to stay in their homes, arm themselves and kill any slow moving person who would not respond to verbal warnings. They also conveyed that the zombies needed to be damaged in the head to stop them completely, but that severing their spines could make them into 'twitchers', zombies that would have a hard time following people who were running away.

"I don't have anything to damage their heads. I mean it was all just a joke before right, the paint ball gun, I mean. But it's not a joke is it, things are really over." Dora was crying, which seemed to embarrass Mike.

"No it's not a joke, but we should be safe here, right? You have walls and stuff and it is a gated community."

"The walls don't even go around the whole place, they are not built yet. People can get in here if they want to. Our gate has a good lock." Dora sighed and continued, "I guess the sauna will never be done."

"Who needs a sauna in Kansas?" asked Paige quietly.

"Yeah it was a stupid idea, it's not like we would actually use it in the winter either. What are we going to do?"

Neither Paige nor Mike had an answer to Dora's question.

"You know I do have a freezer full of steak and seafood." said Dora.

"Really?" asked Paige.

"No, I am lying! Yes we do, what do you think the grill is for? Roger always buys his meat by the truck load and fills the freezer up in the fall, we still have about half a freezer full, mostly because all the barbeque's we were going to have never happened. It's all high end stuff to. Oh I think we have a box of hamburger patties, for when people bring their kids." Dora snorted, "Never happened, of course, so that box is unopened. McDonald's makes a better burger than you can grill at home and you guys are close by."

"What if the power goes out?"

"Then the meat spoils I suppose. We could still cook it, the gas won't go out. I guess we eat as much as we can and toss the rest."

"Couldn't we make jerky? The Indians did."

Dora thought about that for a moment, then pulled herself out of the pool, Paige caught Mike eyeing her behind as she went and elbowed him. He protested his innocence but didn't leer quite so badly. Dora got to the counter space by the grill and opened a cabinet door to reveal several cookbooks, most of them on grilling and food preparation. She fished around in the back and let out a triumphant yell to hold a thin book above her head. She brought this over and tossed it down in front of Paige and Mike before stepping down a ways along the edge of the pool to jump in. Despite her distancing herself from the book a few drops splattered onto the cover.

Mike and Paige looked at the soft bound book, which had a cartoon like cover of a bunch of people in various outfits holding grill implements, the title read, "Just Jerky. The Complete Guide." Mike flipped through it and turned to Dora. "This is awesome, we better start now, Jim mentioned power outages could start anytime." looking at the ingredients to some of the recipes he asked, "Do you have salt? Brown sugar? Other spices?"

"Of course! In the cupboards. Roger was all gun-ho to do this, like all of his plans they were more planned than completed."

"So, should we, you know, start making jerky?"

"Of course, Mike." Dora got a far-away look on her face, "I suppose I don't want to say that at the end of the world I was swimming in my pool. Alright, let's go. As soon as we have the first batch going we pop a bottle of wine, agreed?"

The other nodded their assent and they all hopped out and dried off using towels from the changing room. Dora showed them the freezer, pulling out steaks by the package and then showed Mike and Paige where the spices were. Paige looked over Dora's double oven and found it had a 'Drying' feature, with the convection fan it could also make jerky. They spent an hour defrosting, cutting and spicing meat, then another hour defrosting, cutting and setting meat aside to marinate for batch two, the whole process would take between twelve and eighteen hours. By the time they finished they were all hungry and Mike grilled up some of the remaining steaks on the grill while Dora popped the bottle of wine and poured them all a glass.

While eating the steaks they watched the news. Parts of Kansas City were under heavy attack. They listed the city by severity and the three were alarmed to see they were in a yellow zone, right on the verge of a red zone, a newsman, no longer Jim from the morning show, told them the Mayor was contemplating an evacuation, but had not yet made the decision on where to have people go.

News from the plains was bleak, the helicopter reporter was back in the air looking at Limon Colorado, the horde of zombies there, estimated to be between thirty and fifty thousand had cleaned the town out and was headed down the open highway again. There was no organization to the mob, but they did seem to follow the roads, instead of going overland. Hundreds, if not thousands were wandering around aimlessly, with more splitting off of the horde at any given time, however the horde marched on. As it came to the small towns dotting the plains the conjecture was it would simply devour them. Evacuation orders were given for all cities and towns along the interstate.

The land line at Dora's house started to ring. This startled them, making the three jump at the sound. Dora walked over to the phone mounted outside and looked at the caller id, then turned her back on it.

"Who is it?" Paige asked.

"Roger's cell phone."

"You're not going to get it?"

"No." Dora stated flatly, "I am not. I don't have anything to say to him."

Paige shrugged. The phone stopped ringing and they watched the news start to loop over the same stories it had before. Mike had assembled the paint ball gun, after being given assurances that there were no other firearms in the house. The gun lay on the bar not out of his reach, he was reasonably sure, given the news footage, that the gun would be next to useless, but it was all they had.

The phone started ringing again. Dora stepped over to it and looked again, "Hah! Marge this time? I wonder what she wants? Maybe to say, 'So sorry I have been sleeping with your husband, but things are going to hell and we should all pull together now'?"

"You going to get it?" asked Paige.

Dora swung her head around, eyes watery, then she looked down and said softly, "I don't know what to say to her either."

"Call her a bitch and tell her never to call again?" suggested Paige.