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

What Zombies Fear:

A Father’s Quest

By Kirk Allmond

KINDLE EDITION

* * * * *

Prologue

It’s been twelve years since the world ended. I’m starting to forget things, and every year it gets harder to remember. I had to search through fifteen houses to find a laptop that still functions. What happened to them all? Before the end, everyone I know had at least one, and sometimes two or three laptops. My fingers are starting to remember how to do this. I’m nowhere near the one hundred and fifteen words per minute I used to be able to type though.

I suppose if I’m penning my memoirs, I should introduce myself. My name is Victor Tookes. I’m fifty-two years old. If all had gone according to my plan, I would be retiring this year, or at least taking a consulting position for three more years until my son Max graduated from high school.

Max is the reason we’re alive today, and he’s the reason we continue to live. He had just turned three a few months before Z-day.

That Day. The “D” will always be capitalized in my head when referring to it. The memory of that Day is forever seared in my mind. The Day I lost almost everything. The Day the world ended. I’m telling this story for future generations, so that they may know what I’ve learned through all of this. I’m recording the events for posterity, so the world will remember.

This is the story of my second life, my memories of the days after the apocalypse.

01. The Office

I woke up that Tuesday morning to the sound of the alarm on my phone. It was blasting the theme song from the Transformers movie. My wife, Candi, rolled out of bed and stumbled towards the shower. I reached for my phone to check my email, but not before taking a moment to admire Candi’s beautiful figure as she walked into the light of the bathroom. She was in good shape, and even after fifteen years together she was still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’d always had a ‘thing’ for short women, and she had managed to avoid cutting off her long dark hair when our only child Max was born.

After reading a couple of overnight emails, I got up and headed to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Then it was my turn to head downstairs to “my” bathroom; the one with the tiny sink and stand up shower. I showered, shaved, and ducked into the laundry room to grab a pair of slacks and a white T-shirt. From the laundry room I could hear Candi waking Max in the bedroom directly above. The thought of three and-a-half year old Max waking up always brings a smile to my face. I knew Max would be giving Candi her morning hug and kiss, and she’d be starting the arduous task of getting him dressed. I threw on my pants, noting that they were getting a little snug in the waist. I vowed for the fourth time that week that I would eat a little less fast food today. I’m not massively overweight, but I didn’t exactly lead a strenuous lifestyle in those days.

I carried my T-shirt upstairs and stopped in Max’s room

“Good morning little buddy!” I said with a huge smile on my face.

“Morning Daddy,” said Max as he held out his arms for a good morning hug.

I gave Max a big hug and kiss on the cheek and said “I love you buddy.”

“I love you too, Daddy.” Max said in that perfect three year old way.

I stepped into my bedroom put on my T-shirt. I pulled a freshly pressed Oxford shirt, and selected a tie to go under my gray suit coat. I tossed the tie over my shoulder, grabbed my suit coat and fastened my cufflinks while I headed into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. I was just stirring my coffee when Max came toddling in and said, “Ser-ral bar Daddy!”

“Are you sure Dooder? Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a bowl of cereal?”

“No way! Ser-ral bar!”

I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a cereal bar. It was strawberry flavored. His favorite. I pulled it out of the wrapper and handed it to the boy. Max walked over to his chair at the kitchen table and I turned on the TV. At six-thirty in the morning ‘Ni Hao Kai-Lan’ was coming on, Max’s current favorite show. I looked him over, as a parent often does to their child. He was tall for his age and currently a little pudgy. ‘ Like his old man’, I thought. Max still had baby blonde hair, although it was just starting to darken a bit, kept in a short buzz cut. He has his father’s blue eyes, but the shape was the almost almond shape of his mother’s.

Candi stepped out of the bathroom, looking amazing in a black skirt that fell just above her knee and a form fitting charcoal top. She never left the house without some sort of heel on. Today they were three-inch black heels with a small platform. They were not a stripper-platform, but just close enough to invoke sexiness, while still staying on the line of appropriate business attire. Candi had a way of pushing just to the edge of sexy, without being too overt for work.

“Okay boys, give me my kisses,” she said. It was part of the morning routine before she left for work. She knelt down as Max ran over, gave her a big hug and kisses and said, “Love you, Mommy.”

My turn was next; as I gave her the longest kiss I could in front of Max, which is to say it was pretty chaste. I turned us both around so I could give her butt a little squeeze while I hugged her without Max seeing, and said, “Love you, see you later.”

Candi left and Max and I started putting on his socks and shoes.

“Max, are you going to play with dinosaurs at school today?” I asked. This was a habit I started shortly after enrolling him in this daycare, when he was new and didn’t want to go. We call his daycare ‘school’. Asking these questions gives him something fun to look forward to at school, and made him want to go.

“No, Daddy.”

“Are you going to play with race cars?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Are you going to play with action figures?”

“YES!”

“Well, let’s go then Max, there are some action figures waiting for you!”

The conversation was the same every morning, although the toy that got the ‘yes’ was different almost every day. Most mornings I could name enough toys that eventually he’d say yes. If not, I could still just start the list over again until I got a yes.

Shoes on, we walked out to my truck. Max likes to walk through the grass; I prefer to walk on the sidewalk to keep the grass, dirt, and morning dew off my shoes. I’m not a neat freak, but I do generally try to stay presentable for work. As we were walking out to the truck, I heard three gunshots in quick succession. We aren’t very far from the farmland on the outskirts of our small town, so it’s not completely unheard of to hear shots. At the time, I didn’t give it much thought.

Max’s school is about five minutes up the road; we talked about the same things we talked about every other morning. Max likes to point out specific landmarks and of course, any large vehicles we pass. It was early summer, so there were no school buses, but he pointed out every dump truck, garbage truck and fire truck we passed. Drop-off at daycare was uneventful, and I started the ten-minute drive towards the office.

I pulled into the parking spot labeled “Reserved -Victor Tookes”. When I got my latest promotion to senior vice president, they put my name on that spot. It was terribly embarrassing. It was a nice perk though, not having to carry my laptop and the reams of paper I took home with me every night all the way to my truck. The parking for junior associates is across the parking garage, down four flights of stairs, and across the alley to the office.

My office is in a fairly rough section of town. The rent on the building was cheap enough that we could hire an outside company to provide two security guards to work around the clock, and still come out ahead on the rent in a more desirable part of town. The employees were safe enough walking from the building to the parking garage. Even the call center employees who left at three in the morning could get an escort to their cars. This morning, Chuck was the guard on duty patrolling the garage, and I waved to him as I passed by.