Kirk Allmond - What Zombies Fear - A Father's Quest

“That day, I started driving south, from Pennsylvania to my family’s Home Place. On the way south, I ran into another kind of zombie. These zombies were smart. They were fast. They were tough. And they were looking for me. In Frederick, Maryland, they laid a trap for me, and shot my wife, she died almost instantly. I underestimated them that time, and it cost me dearly. That’s a mistake I won’t make again. Their goal was to stop me from getting here. They failed.” More sounds of understanding, a little louder at this pause.

“At the Potomac River, they were once again waiting on me, this time they’d blockaded the bridge with abandoned cars, and set smart zombies waiting for me. They were trying to stop me from making it here. They failed.” The crowd started talking here, kind of a white noise effect, I couldn’t pick any particular conversations, but overall it felt like the crowd was with me.

“They laid another trap for me in Leesburg, Virginia, and again, they failed. Something told me to take an alternate route through Leesburg. I believe that something, whatever it may be, led me specifically to Leo and John. In Leesburg, Virginia, they were trying to stop me from getting to this place. My family’s place. They failed.”

“Right up the road, around a bend in the highway, they set another roadblock. This time they had at least a hundred zombies. They tried to stop me from getting home, right at the edge of my own property. They underestimated my determination, and they failed. This time, they lost one of their leaders. They lost the super who coordinated the entire chase down Route 15 from my house. Her name was Penelope, and she failed.” Cheers rose at this point, the group was showing some excitement, some hope.

“When I got here, we started fortifying a place for my family. We all worked to keep my son Max safe. My brother Marshall built the fortifications around the house. Leo and John patrolled and helped. My mother has kept us all fed. Everyone in my family, and I include Leo and John as my family, pulled together to do the hard work to keep me safe when I was shot, and to keep Max happy and safe while I was out of commission.”

“A new zombie named Watley came up with a plan to attack me here. He tried to use human shields to hide his zombies. He tried to keep Leo busy with parlor tricks. He orchestrated that attack specifically to exploit my weakness. My weakness, according to Watley, was that I won’t kill a living human. I believe that is our strength. I believe it is a strength because it brought all of us together. Watley tried to exploit my humanity, to use it against me to destroy me and those I love. He failed.”

“You showed that fucker, Tookes!” yelled someone.

“Thank God for you, Tookes!” another yelled.

Someone started clapping in the back, and within a second the whole place was applauding and cheering. After a couple of seconds, I spread my arms, palms down and the crowd quieted again.

“At every turn, these super zombies have failed. They aren’t super. Sure, they’re physically stronger than us. Sure, they heal very quickly. Sure Watley could fly. Even with those vast benefits, they cannot win. Even though some of them are smarter than us. Even though some of them can teleport. Even though some of them heal almost as fast as we can damage them, they still lose to us. It’s because of our humanity, because our greatest weakness in their eyes is our greatest strength that we will prevail. They want our planet. They want our lives. They want our bodies. They will fail.”

Applause broke out again, as well as some cheering. It took a full thirty seconds for me to calm them so I could continue.

“They will fail because we are right. We are good, and good always prevails over evil. They will fail because we are fighting for our lives, but more importantly, we are fighting for our loved ones.”

“Earlier today, I met a potential ally. Colonel Joshua Frye, of the First Virginia Regiment of the former United States Army, came to pay us a visit. We got off to a rocky start, but I have every reason to believe he is a good man. He has offered to take in any of you that would like to go live with him. He is stationed at Mount Pony; he says he has food and medical facilities. Any of you who would like to go with Colonel Frye are free to go. You are not prisoners here; you can go there and be well taken care of by the remnants of the U.S. Army. If you stay here, it will be hard. We all have to work to take care of one another. We all have to pitch in and do our parts, and it will be hard work. But we’ll be together, and we’ll be stronger for it.”

“We’re with you, Tookes!”

I was really flattered by the response. I had no idea this would turn out like this, I’d just intended to say a few words to the group.

“If you stay here, you will be expected to contribute, in whatever way you can. If you can cook, I’m sure my mother, Sharon, could use your help. If you can sew, I have a project for you. If you can knit, we’re all going to need a lot of sweaters. If you know about animals, or are a farmer, we will definitely need your skills. I worked in an office, creating Excel spreadsheets and yelling at people for being late. I have a lot to learn, my old skills are pretty much worthless. Regardless of whom you were before or what you did before, we’re all a family now, if you’d like to be a part of it. And family sticks together.”

“Thank you for listening to me. We will get through this. We will create a new life for ourselves. This is our time, this is our planet, and this is our life. The zombies will fail.”

I stepped down off the stone, applause and a cheer went up through the crowd. The auras were almost all shades of yellow and green. I noticed one that didn’t fit in, over in the back corner.

“Sir, you should have been a politician. That’s one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard.”

“Charlie, I’d have been a terrible politician. I meant what I said up there.”

We all grinned at that. Leo, John, Marshall, and Mom headed into the crowd to meet our new family members.

“Charlie, who’s that over in the back corner. Wearing a dark green t-shirt and jeans, short dark hair.”

“That’s Ken, uhh. Ken Sanders, sir. His wife and four children died at the school. They must have been fed to the zombies before you got there. When we all left to come here they were alive, but they never came home from the school. He went out there last night, against orders, and found his daughters doll in with the charred zombie corpses. You really did a number on them, sir.”

“Thanks for the information Charlie. I need to go talk to him. I think he’s going to try to kill me.”

31. Sanders

“Charlie, do you have a radio? Do Leo and John have one?”

“I do, but I don’t think they do, sir.” replied Charlie.

“Please go find them. Sanders is going to make a move. I don’t want him hurt, and I don’t want to scare him. If he runs, let him go.”

“Yes, sir,” Bookbinder answered, but I could tell he was unhappy about the order.

“Charlie,” I said. “He can’t hurt me. I’ll know what he intends to before he does, I can handle one skinny, angry guy.”

It took me a couple of minutes to work the crowd. They were tired and dirty and needed to change clothes. I counted a handful of people with bedroom slippers on. I was partially stalling, to give Bookbinder time to find and convey the message to Leo and John. At least twenty or more had on sneakers. Most of them only had the clothes they were wearing. One man wasn’t wearing a shirt. Another was wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt. I remembered that most of these people had been rounded up in the middle of the night. All of them needed soap. There were six babies under walking age. We had no diapers. Upon closer inspection, I saw a baby wearing a T-shirt for a diaper. I wondered if that was the shirtless man’s baby.