The Dead Rule the Day Read online

me like I was insane, but we had already discussed the seeming trend for the dead to disappear at night. We were only half a mile away from a megastore, no reason to live on snacks when we could stock up. While I gathered a list of what we had and what the others wanted, Beau checked the generator.

  He thinks it may have 10 full days of gas left in it. If we turned it off before the sun came up and slept during the day, only to turn it back on at night we could make it last almost 3 weeks. By then we should have scouted out a better place to stay or found more gas. 

  The streets outside were barren except ripped chunks of flesh and abandoned vehicles. It took me about fifteen minutes to find one that had keys and gas. The megastore was still in pristine shape. It looked like no one had dared enter it, could we really be the last survivors? Once I pried the doors open, I quickly ran to grab a cart. The first thing I picked up was underwear in all our sizes and a couple bras for us girls. Our clothes were so dirty and worn from two days of hell, you would have thought we had been shipwrecked for months.

  My mind screamed at me to take all of the clothes but I settled for three changes a person. I grabbed deodorant, shampoo and body wash. We didn't have a place to shower now but we would find one tomorrow night when the zombies left us again. I wheeled out the first basket and shoved them in the trunk. My teeth were still on edge, even though there were no signs of the creature around me. Before the food I ran to the sports section and took the three rifles they had on display and ammo to fit. I grabbed every hunting knife in sight and anything else that could be used for a weapon. From the electronics and grabbed a DVD player and a handful of (non horror) movies and some music to play. If we had the night to ourselves, we may as well live like it. Board games, I thought, we need board games. 

  The store had been thoroughly raided. Thanks to the generator we could power the microwave, and hot food sounded amazing. I could barely restrain myself from filling the entire cart with microwave foods. I gathered easily transportable foods like granola bars, in case I couldn’t return to the store before we moved on. Worried our next stop may not have a generator I took one of the gas display models, but couldn't fit two in the car I had taken. I felt thoroughly pleased with myself as I headed home with our first nights bounty, until the guilt hit. I had just stolen a car and robbed a store. Does it count when you have to? When your life depends on it? The growl in my stomach pushed away any worries my conscience had brought up and I pulled the vehicle into the warehouse so no one else could take it. That night we ate hot dogs and mashed potatoes- an odd combination, but it was slightly comforting. For the next few days we stayed up with the moon and went down with the sun.

  The 10th day there things changed. The shuffling didn't come in the daytime, at first I thought the dead had all returned to their graves but a quick look into the outside world showed they were still lumbering about. They seemed even slower than the last time I had seen them, I felt assured we would make it through this. When night fell we explored the nearby neighborhood and found a home with its doors and windows in one piece. It looked to have an attic from the outside so we wondered into the place looking for the access. Before we could pull the release hatch a terrified voice came from upstairs and threatened to shoot if we did so.

  Their voices sounded hungry and strained, did they not know they were safe? "Please don't! Are you hungry? We have food and water!" I tried to not recoil as I realized it was the same line the boy and girl had used to get into our safe house. Another voice shouted "GO AWAY" and I did what they asked but only after telling them that the monsters were gone at night. The words probably fell on deaf ears, but at least I said it to them. Before we left Chris left a jar of peanut butter and some crackers on the table. He called up to them that we had left food and a note where to find us, but only to come out in the night...that the dead ruled the day. We left knowing we would never see them again. 

  The next afternoon, even less rotting corpses roamed the street. The ones left seemed to be fresh dead, there were no more skeletons dragging themselves through the streets. They may have starved because they couldn't attack the way the younger ones could. I realized the hard way that there must have been, until that point, many survivors. A pack of freshly dead (probably from starvation and not attack, from the way they looked) came at me faster than I could hide. 

  Their teeth and nails dug into my skin. Some of their nails broke off, one of their teeth did. This is why I am now curled up in a corner in the attic, pulling pieces of people out of my skin. Someone else has gone to get food and medical supplies. We don't think it's contagious; you just come back after you die. I am not going to die. The others are all watching me, I have no doubt that if I lose enough blood to pass out they will drag me downstairs and leave me to rot. I don't blame them, not even my friends. The strangers would expect the same of us, I believe.

  Beau just walked in with the medical supplies and is being nice enough to help me bandage my wounds; he also brought me large sewing needles and string. It won’t be perfect but I can sew the one gash up. I hate needles and cringe every time I have to push the dulled point through the already bruised and battered flesh. Beau holds the two sides of my arm together so that I can move a little faster. He was the one who pulled me away from the fresh corpses that attacked me, had it not been for him I would already be gone. 

  We will have to be more careful in the future, all we have to do is let the dead have the day and we can own the night. I wondered why we had not met others at night, had no one else figured it out? It couldn't be that difficult of a concept, it was so obvious. It may be the sheer insanity of the dead thriving in the sun and running from the moon that has kept others away from the theory. I am OK with the moon, she seems like my protector right now and I know some part of me will miss her when I can't see her again. The girl and boy that had come to stay with us disappeared the next night. I guess I would rather them leave then throw me out. I assume that's why they left, they had been with us for so long. Is it wrong that I did not want to learn their names? Even though we didn't want to get attached if anything happened, an attachment somehow formed anyway and I missed their presence here. At least they knew how to survive. Beau and Chris are determined to help me get to a shower so I can clean my wounds, so we are headed out on another mission to find a house. Finally we came across a three story home with an attic. The bottom rooms were trashed but the top two were untouched. Must have been people looking for food.

  The attic was finished with power outlets! We brought a mini-fridge upstairs so we could have some cold drinks and connected a fan up on each side of the attic. The attic entrance was large enough to pull a mattress through and we put it on the side near the small window. We brought up a small dresser and started slowly building this home to be ours. 

  I went to sleep on the mattress and awoke the next morning. Chris and Beau are gone and I am starting to panic. They have filled the dresser with my clothes and the fridge with food and drink. Nothing of theirs is here. There is enough food to last a day or so and I have no idea how much gas they put in the generator we brought. I am feeling weaker. Even if I can't blame them, I don't think it's fair they left me here to die alone. I don't have the strength to get back to the warehouse. I am writing our experiences here so that others can find them if they come after us, though I don't think they will. 

  My name is Laura and I am twenty three. I love my family and would normally never take this way out, but you know what they say about desperate times. The boys left me a bottle of pills, who knows where they got them. I am going to take them and go to sleep, so don’t hate those that abandoned me. If you find my family…let them know I loved them, but please don’t tell them how it ended.

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  For more works by Rebecca Carter please visit rebeccacarterbooks.com

 
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