The headlights splashed across the towering pine trees as the truck bounced and jostled over the deep ruts of the dirt path as it climbed up the slope. His nerves were shot and Eric’s knuckles were turning white as his fingers kept digging into the steering wheel as the truck trundled on behind Sanchez’s patrol car. How the cop was keeping the black and white squad car on the road as a mystery. Sanchez took a sharp left following the cut of the ridge ahead, Eric followed. As he rounded the hairpin turn Eric’s jaw hit the floor as the head lights hit the front of the house like floodlights.
The house was massive. It had the look of a turn of the 20th century farmhouse. A long front porch that wrapped around three sides of the house sheltered from the elements by a terraced roof that gave anyone in the upper rooms of the house an easy escape route for a midnight roll in the hay. Two large bay windows, black as the eye sockets of skulls stared out at the ragtag group of survivors as they drove into the front yard.
Every window in the house was dark giving the place an abandoned, almost haunted house like vibe as the red traces of the dying sun disappeared towards the West. They had been through a lot on their trip to get here. Eric could feel the tension knotting all the muscles in his back from his neck down to his waist. Coupled with his complete lack of sleep in over twenty four hours he was ready to collapse into the closest thing to a bed he could find. He was confident that his body was so far beyond the barrier of exhaustion that not even the horrors that he had seen on their drive out to the house would invade his sleep.
Sanchez was the first out of the car; he had his 9mm pistol out of its holster and pressed against his left thigh. He put his hand out to Tommy palm up telling him to stay put. Eric didn’t know if the portly mechanic had shaken off the trauma of the day but he was unarmed and would only be food for any zombies possible lurking around. Baxter scratched with his right paw at the window of the backseat begging Eric to come over and pet him. Eric was glad they had Baxter. The dog might not prove to be any more use then being a morale booster and a reminder of better days but he couldn’t go over and comfort the dog right now. He only had a handful of bullets left in his gun but any bullets would be better than none if they found any zombies inside the farm house.
“Stay here,” Eric told the women in the truck fixing each one of them with his stare. He was confident that they were all in some degree of shock or other but he didn’t want them getting curious and coming out to see what was happening until they knew the group was safe. In the back of his head he was already thinking about what would happen tomorrow. The women with them were certainly not useless like most of the zombie fiction he had indulged in made them out to be. They’d have to become warriors and killers before too long. He had even seen the spark of fire in Rachel’s eyes earlier and Eric felt confident that she had a burning desire to kill zombies. She hadn’t received a return message yet and Eric knew that she yearned for vengeance. He hadn’t gotten a return message either so he understood her hunger.
He pushed to door open and put his foot on the runner bar and climbed out of the truck. Eric looked behind him and saw that Fred was also coming up towards the house. The lanky mechanic had the shotgun pointed into the dirt a few feet in front of him ready to swing it up and fire in two seconds.
Sanchez swiped his arm through the air calling the other two up to his side. He was crouched against the right front bumper of his squad car and eyed the house with more than a little suspicion. Fred and Eric trotted over and crouched down beside the officer making a rough circle. “Alright guys here’s the plan, we don’t have a key for this place; Davis took it with him to his grave so we’re going to make sure the door isn’t unlocked before we kick it in. If he has to we’ll knock it down and fan out.”
Fred was nodding his head like breaking down doors and sweeping a house like a Special Forces unit was something he did every day. Eric was less sure of himself but this new world didn’t give a man the comfort of second guessing. Eric nodded although a little less enthusiastically.
“Once where inside I’m going to cover the left side of the room, Fred you take the center. That shotgun has got a lot wide range effect and if someone comes at us from the front in the dark you’ve got the best chance to taking them out. That leaves the right side Eric; you’ll have the door for cover so if something does come from your side you’ll have a barrier between you and it and a few extra seconds to fire.” Eric nodded. Everything Sanchez did made Eric like him more and more. The officer was taking the most dangerous assignment of their breaching maneuver. He was going to be the first one in the door and had the least cover and the least effective weapon. He was a true leader, a guy who went into the mix with his soldiers not some rearguard commander; he’d dive into the thick of it no matter the outcome. “If this doesn’t turn out well it was nice knowing you guys,” Sanchez stretched out his big callused hand and shook both Eric’s and Fred’s hand in turn then he stood up and started towards the door.
The officer’s heavy boots made heavy thuds like the smash of a battering ram against a timber door as he climbed up the wooden steps and across the white washed planks of the porch. Eric was a step behind the officer and Fred a step behind him. They echo of their feet against the solid wood planks of the porch seemed to cry out in the silence of the descending night. Eric looked to his left down the long walkway of the porch and through the almost impenetrable screen of pine trees he could see the last purple rays of the sun disappearing beyond the horizon.
A final heavy thud signaled Sanchez’s halt by the door. He looked to Fred directly behind him and then and nodded then he looked at Eric and with a jerk of his head signaled Eric to move to the right of the door. Eric did as he was told and set his back against the siding of the wall between the right side of the door and the bay window. Sanchez reached for the door knob. His big baseball glove a hand wrapped around the brass knob and seemed to swallow the thing whole. There was a small metal click as Sanchez rotated his wrist. So the door was unlocked. Sanchez fixed the two men with a hard stare and then mouthed the words three, two, one and pushed the door in.
He let go of the door which swung on rusted protesting hinges to the right and he swung in and moved three steps to the left his gun raised his left eye open and staring down the iron sites of his gun. The door hit the inside wall of the house and as if he was waiting for that secret signal Fred charged into the room and pulled the shotgun into his shoulder. The door was already swinging back when Eric slipped into the house. He pushed the door back against the wall with his right shoulder and he brought up his .45 and swept his side of the room with a slow left to right arc.
The only sound Eric could hear in the pitch black room was the heavy breathing of Fred and Sanchez and his heart pounding in his eardrums. He was probably breathing heavy too but with the heavy cadence of his heartbeat he couldn’t hear himself. They stood there all three with their guns raised and ready for a solid minute muscles tensed and screaming for release. Sanchez was the first to move he kept his gun pointed to the left. He took his right hand off the grip of the pistol and started fumbling with heavy fingers around the edge of the doorframe.
There was a snap and a second later the front room of the farmhouse was lit up. A second snap and the porch light came on. Eric looked around at the room as his eye adjusted to the light. It was the perfect image of what an old farmhouse that hadn’t been used with any sort of frequency in years looked like in his head. Heavy cream colored cloth was draped over all of the furniture in the house. Large wing chairs and a couple of long couches dotted the room to Eric’s right along with what Eric assumed was an old sixties TV. set in a heavy wood frame in the corner.
His eyes turned towards the center of the hallway and found a impressive dark wood staircase leading up to the next floor of the house and a narrow hallway leading to the back of the house where Eric assumed they’d find a mint green kitchen with fifties style appliances all in the mint chocolate chip ice cream color.
As his eyes continued to travel across the room Eric’s eyes fell on the far left side of the room and found a large banquet length table sitting imposing and covered in a proper dining room.
“Everything looks clear here but we’ve got to take a look at the rest of the house before we call in the others.” Sanchez was scanning the rooms too but Eric could tell the man was thinking more about tactics then about comforts. “Fred you come this way and go left through the dining room and make sure wherever that door in the back of the room leads its clear. Eric you go to the right and make sure there aren’t any zombies that way. You too should meet up in the kitchen if I’m not mistaking. I’m heading up the stairs. If you hear gun shots coming running.” Sanchez didn’t wait for either man to acknowledge his orders just set one heavy boot on the first step of the staircase and started trudging up. He kept his gun pointed straight at the top of the staircase.
Fred hunched his shoulders as if to say whatever and then set his gun against his shoulder and started towards his left. Eric didn’t waste any time. He started to the right. He weaved in between the draped furniture. There were at least three long couches long enough for even a tall man to lay down on. Eric wasn’t sure how they were going to set up a guard duty but he was hoping that he’d get at least a few hours to sleep on one of the couches. They were probably old and worn enough that they’d be just as comfortable as a bed not that his body was going to be that distinguishing.
He moved slowly and made an effort to put each foot down on the floor as gently as he could. The floorboards of the old house creaked anyway and several times Eric was sure that the creaking boards were coming from the hidden room in front of him. But nothing every materialized out of the darkness. As he went he flicked on light switches when he found them and within five minutes he was in the mint green kitchen he had imagined he’d find. Fred came into the kitchen a few seconds later.
“My mom had a kitchen like this when I was growing up same damn color and everything. Made me sick as a kid but makes me feel like home now.” The mechanic let out a heavy sign a hundred pounds of stress and pressure slipping off him as the breath left his lips.
“Yeah I think it will be a good home. Do you think we’re going to stay?”
“We’ve got to. There’s nowhere else for us to go. We’ve got at least what, twenty miles between us and the fringe of Spokane’s Westside? Those things will take months, maybe years to stretch out this far. By then who knows what we could have done to the place.” Fred had a shit eating grin plastered to his face as his eyes lighted on one thing and then another in the house.
The heavy hammer strikes of Sanchez’s combat boots announced his arrival like a medieval herald as he came down the stairs. He was in the kitchen half a minute later admiring the place. “The place is empty, thank god.” Sanchez crossed himself as he spoke. Today was a either a day to lose your faith or fortify it, Sanchez had apparently chosen the latter. “There are six rooms upstairs. Large beds in each room except for two twins in one of them. It will be tight but we’ll be doing two people to a room for awhile.”
“Is it first come first served?” Fred was eyeing the ceiling with more than a little lust. Eric had the same feeling a comfortable bed in a room with a locking door sounded like just the ticket after the day he had had.
“Got get the others and then we can divvy up the beds however people want to. We’ll have to set a guard watch at least two men. Kirk and I’ll take the first shift. We do six hours at a time. From now till midnight he and I will be out front watching things. After that it’s you two, alright?”
“As long as I get to sleep in a bed I don’t care how long you want me to watch the front door.” Fred took off towards the front door with a smile on his face like a kid who’d just asked the head cheerleader to prom and gotten a yes.
“I’m going to sleep on one of the couch’s if that’s alright by you Sanchez?” Eric knew he’d fall asleep anywhere at this point but if things did go to hell quickly and the zombies found this place he wanted to be ready to push them back. He couldn’t lose this house to the dead.
“Fine by me kid whatever makes it easier for you to sleep. Tomorrow the hard work begins.” With that the Hispanic officer walked off towards the front of the house preparing to take the first watch of the night.