Get Off My L@wn - A Zombie Novel Read online

  Get Off My L@wn:

  How a Computer Geek and His Wife

  Survived the Zombie Apocalypse

  Perry S. Kivolowitz

  Copyright © 2013 by PSK Intellect, LLC

  This is a work of fiction. References to place names serve only to advance a fictional account of a Zombie apocalypse. None of the events in this novel have actually taken place.

  All trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

  I dedicate this work to my son Evan who pressed me to reengage in the zombie genre and to my wife Sara for being all a spouse should be and more.

  And to George A. Romero.

  I am sorry for the people you lost.

  The counselors say we “have to go on living.” I wonder what the counselors really think, when they are alone and there is a sound or a smell and the memories bite and claw and moan. Do they repeat their own platitudes? Do they tell themselves to look on the bright side? Are they comforted that things could have been worse?

  As you begin reading this, as evidenced by the fact that you even can begin reading this, take a moment to reflect on that last self-evident cliché. Things really could have been worse.

  There have already been many memoirs written by survivalists and preppers. Some of these folks were down right tickled at the opportunity to crush rotting skulls with mail order Zombie Spikes.

  There have been books written by soldiers who marshaled intense focus, fortitude and training to harness powerful weaponry or the solitary brutality of their own fists. Certainly, without these folks, none of us would be here.

  Finally, there have been books written by completely ordinary folks who found strength and resolve to overcome the most extraordinary circumstances. These people are the true heroes.

  Our story does not encompass the full sweep of the global melt down. We stayed close to home. This is not a grand epic. This is our account of a great tragedy writ small.

  My wife Ruth Ann and I were not actively planning for the apocalypse. We gradually eased into it. Ruth Ann is a product of no-nonsense Midwestern farm stock. She has never taken shit from anyone. She brought a natural tendency towards preparedness and self-reliance common to small town America. I grew up in a rust belt city and was robbed, mugged and burgled so many times that I was finished being a victim. I brought a natural tendency towards worry and worshipped regularly at the altar of what-if.

  Perhaps most importantly, I did not really like people much to begin with.

  Before we could build our “dream house”, we had to do battle with a bunch of self-important pricks from the neighborhood association called the Architectural Review Committee. We picked our development because it was the most rural we could get while being new enough to get optical fiber to the house. The country that invented the Internet was finally catching up to Estonia (though we still lag far behind South Korea).

  This part of Wisconsin is host to frequent tornadoes.

  I did not want to be the guy interviewed on TV, head in hands, talking about how everything that was important to him was “gone, all gone.” I wanted to be the guy next door to the guy whose house was gone, all gone. I wanted to be the guy whose house was ‘miraculously untouched” by the fury of nature.

  I do not believe in miracles but I do believe in Intelligent Design, as in, use some intelligence when you design a house in downtown tornadoville.

  The pricks on the ARC wanted desperately to reject our house design and did so several times, much to the pleasure of our architect. The ARC whined that the house would look too much like a bunker. Each rejection served only to drive up our architect’s fees and piss me off. Finally, we studied the neighborhood covenants closely and laid down the law to the architect. The committee approved our house design because we left them no way to reject it. We got our “bunker” by adding extra perennials, bushes, and some “mature” trees. We had to add a crap load of aluminum siding we did not need or want. On the ground floor, what were solid concrete walls were dotted with real shutters where windows would normally be.

  Folks from the neighborhood flapped their jaws at how deep the foundation was being dug, “that’s a mighty big hole you got there Doug.” They scoffed at the tie rod reinforcement of the framing and they stopped talking to us altogether when they realized the tie rod reinforced framing was not that at all. It was reinforcement for poured concrete exterior walls. No, our neighbors did not like our house. Too damn bad for them I thought.

  It really did turn out to be too damn bad for them because now they are “gone all gone.” All except for us and the neighbor kid Ryan, who joined us for a while early on. He liked our house just fine.

  I made a hat full of money in Silicon Valley but no, you never heard of me. I was perfectly happy to let some Nehru shirt wearing wiener or snot nosed child dressed in black hog the camera. I was not the “god-like founder” type. I was a hit man brought in by venture capitalists when they needed somebody “to fully realize” the wiener’s “vision.” Four progressively bigger paydays and I kissed the Valley goodbye not needing to work again.

  Being well off and having an eclectic set of interests helped Ruth Ann and me survive the near end of humanity. Our mix of mild paranoia and a well-developed cynicism definitely helped. To be honest, my worldview was simply “People suck.” This turned out to be especially helpful when, in addition to sucking, people started biting, clawing and tearing too.

  Were it only me in this mess I would have been out staggering on a long-term nature walk soon after the world went to shit. If it is not computer related, I am only as handy as a telephone and a credit card. I am Eva Gabor on Green Acres to Ruth Ann’s Eddie Albert. She made our Fortress of Solitude possible.

  October dawned brisk and beautiful. The foliage had peaked early this year promising a cold winter. The local news bubbled with stories of folks looking forward to the start of bow and gun-hunting season in November, as was Ruth Ann. At the national level, it was the same shit different year. Those with more power fucked those with less. Those with none thought things were great never realizing how well and truly screwed they were.

  Down in Madison the University was taking heat again for their research on H7N9, the 1918 flu, Ebola and other virus lines they never revealed they had. The Ebola research was supposed to have stopped back in 2009 but who knows if it was. In the years since, researchers at UW were in the news for publishing papers on how to tweak flu bugs to be more contagious and deadly. They claimed that knowing what few mutations were necessary to “enhance” the massively dangerous viruses would better prepare us should such mutation happen in the wild. “Forewarned is forearmed” they argued.

  In reality, the University had spent millions building a first rate lab for some hotshot researcher they lured from some other place. They were not about to close down their investment “just because” the work might result in the end of the world.

  Luckily, the flu bugs did not cause the end of the world.

  The combination of flu bugs and aggressive viral meningitis (which they had not let on that they had) did.

  In combining, much of the communicability of the flu was lost. The virus could live for only a short time airborne and on surfaces. Infection by proximity was a real potential. Transfer of bodily fluids had a guaranteed outcome.

  The researchers were good at their jobs. They made a killer bug. Who said we couldn’t build anything in America anymore? The lab facilities the UW built were as good as they said. They claimed the facilities were idiot proof. Maybe they were.

  They were not, however, “$15.10 per hour Project-Assistant with one month on the job” proof.

  The virus brought death
after a mostly asymptomatic incubation period long enough for those infected to disperse. In a process, still not explained, reanimation occurred soon thereafter.

  Of all places, the first glimpse of what was to come broke on TMZ. Some celebutantes were in Madison for an annual charity benefit. There was an after-party at one of University Avenue’s rowdier student bars. Madison and Wisconsin in general was great for bars. More bars than churches here, and we have a great many churches.

  Come bar time the street was empty with the exception of folks with camera phones waiting for the celebs to exit. A kid (the lab assistant) came staggering down the street, a common sight that raised no eyebrows. He all but fell on one of the onlookers from behind and was filmed taking bites out of her.

  People scattered but not without keeping their phones pointed at the bloody scene. After all, they were sure this would “go viral” and had visions of sugarplum fairies and zillions of virtual dollars dancing before their eyes. They were right about it going viral of course but I doubt anyone would be around to cash let alone issue the virtual checks.

  The MPD was quickly on the scene. The “drunk” ignored police orders and warnings, tearing into the girl with teeth and nails. Finally distracted from his twitching victim by the shouting police officers, he made a move towards them. One cop fired his Taser. The drunk convulsed while the Taser’s charge lasted but instead of remaining inert, got back up immediately. The cop fired the Taser’s second load. Again, the drunk got back up as if nothing had happened.

  Staggering at a patrolman with blood smeared arms outstretched and blood running down his chin onto his Sconnie sweatshirt, the cops put one shot each into the drunk’s center of mass. The drunk went down and was still. One officer crouched low to feel for a pulse and reported he felt none. While still crouched, the drunk opened his eyes; he grabbed the cop’s hand and yanked it quickly to his bloody mouth. The cop screamed from the pain of the vicious bite. The other cop fired into the drunk’s head.

  That was the footage that showed up on TMZ. After snarky comments about the cannibal missing out on a splitting headache in the morning, the segment closed with an exclamation of heartfelt thanks that the bimbo famous for being famous was safe. Thank heavens.

  The widespread availability of several videos of the event immediately brought breathless online comments that the “dude’s a zombie, bro.” Unlike any fictional account of the zombie apocalypse that I have ever read, video of the first biting victim was globally available within twenty-four hours of the event. It did not make any difference.

  By that Friday (Day 3), there were reports around Dane County of similar bizarre behavior. The lab assistant had already spread the virus by aerosol to other students and academics. Those exposed to the police officers involved in the first recorded biting incident also spread the bug before they too expired and reanimated to bring mayhem by tooth and nail.

  A community Fish Fry at a Cross Plains church became a scene of bewildered terror when a person in bloody and torn clothing entered the parish hall and began viciously biting parishioners. Similar events took place at a Fall Concert at a middle school in Waunakee, a high school varsity football game in Sun Prairie and an indie movie theater in Madison.

  By the following Monday (Day 5), all schools (including the UW where this all began) in Dane and surrounding counties were closed. Reporters from all the major and not-so-major news organizations were flooding into Madison to report on events first hand. There were Internet-based reports of similar odd events taking place in a number of cities around the country and world.

  The next day, Tuesday (Day 6) the Governor banned all forms of public assembly in southern Wisconsin. In protest, fourteen Wisconsin state legislators made public denouncements from an undisclosed location believed to have been in Illinois. We now know that one of these legislators was the local source of infection near the Wisconsin / Illinois border.

  The Governor called out the National Guard in Dane County, declaring it a disaster area. By nightfall broadcasts from downtown Madison, right outside the ritzy hotel where the press was staying, showed the National Guard firing into a crowd of advancing bloody disfigured people. After warnings not to let small children watch what was about to come, bullets could be seen in slow motion entering and exiting persons who did not even falter. The segment closed with Guardsmen in violent hand-to-hand combat as strange attackers overran their positions.

  On Wednesday (Day 7), the international news reported major uncontrolled outbreaks throughout the world.

  Back when the zombie apocalypse was fodder for fiction, most writers painted a bleak and hopeless future for humankind. Given the bug that actually hit us could spread indirectly by aerosol and contact (not just fluid transfer) bleak and hopeless looked about right.

  Fortunately, we got the classic “slow dumb” zombie and not the lightning fast mutant ninja assassin zombies some fiction described. Who ever said they were “slow” must never been chased by one, ten or a thousand. They are not that slow.

  What gave us hope from early on is that our zombies eventually rot. Given enough time and the right environmental conditions, their brainstems will eventually decay and detach. Waiting for that to happen though can kill you. Our government based its strategy upon patience. In the end, we would take back our country by concentrating on preserving life. There would be no nuclear or chemical weapons on U.S. soil.

  On a global level, hot wet already stinky places like jungles were actually better off. The dead expired without help after less than eight weeks of mayhem. Cold places, like here in Wisconsin, have the mixed blessing of winter. The cold decreases their attention span. If you can hide, the chance they will wander off increases as the temperature drops. However, this benefit does not come without a significant downside. The cold extends the creature’s shelf life indefinitely. In a deep freeze, they do not spoil at all.

  Ironically, what were before the “best” places to live offering moderate weather all year became the very picture of bleakness described in the darkest of the pre-war books. On a personal note, I observe that my ex-wife still lived near Silicon Valley when it was wiped out. She was already a life-sucking bitch so things did not change that much for her.

  On a local scale, on the scale of “up close and personal,” on the scale of “we’re surrounded by miles of pus,” the theoretical advantages offered by any particular locale did not amount to much. Pundits used to say, “All politics is local.” I do not need to tell you, “All zombies are local.” One ambulatory zombie at your back is one more than you need.

  The plague spread around the globe within a few weeks. Other writers can document in more detail how the international dominoes fell. Our story is primarily about our own patch of ground.

  Was the course of events predictable? Absolutely.

  If you have an Internet connection again, you can download the 2009 paper by Munz, Hudea, Imad and Smith from:

  http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/Zombies.pdf

  Using basic modeling techniques, they came to the following conclusion:

  “An outbreak of zombies infecting humans is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead. While aggressive quarantine may eradicate the infection, this is unlikely to happen in practice. A cure would only result in some humans surviving the outbreak, although they will still coexist with zombies. Only sufficiently frequent attacks, with increasing force, will result in eradication, assuming the available resources can be mustered in time.”

  Initial reaction in the U.S. was laughable. In those first few days we tweeted, “liked,” LOL’d and OMG’d the approaching end-of-days. There was a seemingly non-stop stream of pictures with witty captions. Americans grasped the full impact of what was happening later Wednesday morning. The shocking video of dying National Guardsmen from the night before had now been seen by every American with access to any media device.

  Later in the day, the city that birthed the plague
became the first city in the world declared an uninhabitable military zone. Losing a state capital, home to more than 250,000, stopped the idiotic meme machine cold.

  The news did not stop a different type of idiot: ideologically driven lawyers.

  The Federal Government attempted large-scale mobilization on Friday (Day 9) but lawsuits seeking to stop or limit action brought those efforts to a standstill. The far left wanted “to study the impact on the rights of those affected.” The far right, who were convinced the liberal leaning President finally had his pretext to take their guns away, insisted the U.S. military could not be allowed to act within the United States under Posse Comitatus laws. Fortunately, the well-regulated militia actually envisioned by the framers, the National Guard, was not similarly impeded.

  Ruth Ann and I discussed what our course of action would be, as things got worse. From the start we figured we were better off right here at home than facing the unknown of relocation. The neighborhood Architectural Review Committee had whined that our house would look like a bunker. We compromised by adding more curb appeal, but they were right. We had built a bunker.

  We completed our contingency inventories. We were already well supplied. Just the same, I charged my Amazon credit card up to its credit limit on whatever survival supplies we felt we needed. With any luck, the items would be here by Tuesday. Ruth Ann told me which bow supplies, red dot, IR and laser optics to order for each weapon we owned. I bought boatloads of uncommon battery types to complement the many dozens of standard rechargeables we had, survival gear like food and hand tools, firearm-training equipment (I did not have a clue) and many Kindle-based reference books. I figured if UPS made it, great. If not, I would argue for a refund if we lived or Visa would have a tough time collecting if we did not.