10 Minutes From Home: Episode 5 Read online

  10

  MINUTES FROM HOME

  Episode Five

  BY

  BILL HOWARD

  After securing the survivors from the Bramford Apartments, Denny heads off on his own to make up some time on his journey home. After meeting up with a new acquaintance the travelers come across a unique place that sheds more light on the extent of the infection.

  - BOOKS of the DEAD -

  Smashwords Edition

  “Bill Howard’s 10 Minutes from Home might start out like a standard apocalyptic zombie novel, with scenes that could be taken straight out of a Romero script, but it slowly unfolds into a well narrated love story about one of the most harrowing experiences a couple might have to face. Bonus for those of you located in Ontario: there are plenty of references to genre hot spots, such as the town of Pontypool and Toronto’s Bloor Cinema.” Jessa Sobczuk – Rue Morgue Magazine

  “Heartbreaking and soulful, 10 Minutes from Home is one gut-wrenching read I will not forget. This is one meta-cool book!” - John Palisano, author of NERVES

  “A purely cinematic, heart-pounding and thrilling story.” – Susan Curran, Director of Marketing, Anchor Bay Canada

  “Folks, you need to read this book! Bill is an amazing writer and what he has forged here is a zombie lovers must have. George A. Romero himself could not have penned a better zombie tale! Check it out! Great job Bill!” – Brad Mavin – Proo(f) Paranormal

  “So many things I never saw coming, a definite adrenaline rush while reading! I felt myself reading faster as the pace picked up. This is a book I would read over and over again.” – Paul Silliphant – Proo(f) Paranormal

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  10 MINUTES FROM HOME

  Episode Five

  (Chapters 25 – 28)

  Copyright 2013 by Bill Howard

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  BOOKS of the DEAD

  * * *

  This series is for:

  Joanne & Evangeline

  CHAPTER 25: FEELS LIKE HOME

  Frank grabbed the rifle out of my hand and gave over his handgun. I looked at him with puzzlement, not understanding how he came to be standing in front of me right now. He put out his hand and helped me up.

  “Denny, did everyone get into the base? Emily and the kids, are they okay?”

  “Yeah Frank, they’re all okay and all at the base. How the hell did you get here, what happened in the apartment?”

  “It’s a long story, there’s no time right now. I have to get to Emily. The troops are on their way, you have to get out of here, I’ll cover for you and say I was shooting at some infected in the woods. I have to be with Em and the kids Denny. Just run.”

  “Thanks Frank, really. Please be careful with the soldiers, play it safe. I’m going to take the northern route through the woods, up through the Rouge Valley. If the opportunity presents itself, you know where I’ll be headed. “With that, I shook hands with Frank and took off into the woods. After a few minutes I could hear the troops yelling at Frank to get on the ground. Thankfully, I didn’t hear any gunfire. I ran as fast as I could through the woods, my breath burning in my lungs, but the urge to get further away, closer to home, overwhelmed the urge to stop. I ran for another hour straight, getting into a trance like state that carried me through, thoughts of Diane and Jordan occupying my mind. As I ran through the dense woods, I felt like a wild animal, leaping over fallen branches and crossing streams. It was freeing in a bizarre sort of way. Once I finally did stop, I looked around and took note of the fact that I had not seen any animals in the hour since I started running. Not one. I considered various explanations as I walked, until a glimpse of a house across a field pulled my attention back to the real world. The house was on a large piece of land that seemed to be an old farm. The farmhouse was well kept, large and beautiful with a full wraparound porch. There were no sounds in the area, nor any movement that I could detect. The sun was getting low in the sky and I knew I didn’t have long before darkness fell, so I made my way across the field and approached the house. This particular house had good-sized basement windows, so I leaned over to one and tried to open it. It was locked from the inside, so I took out a Swiss Army knife that I was given back at the Bramford and started to peel away the caulking around the window. After a solid 15 minutes work, I pried the window out of its frame and lowered myself into the house. I pulled the window back into place and made a mental note to come back down later and board it up. The basement was finished, done up like a home theatre with leather couches and a LCD TV that was far bigger than it needed to be, but cool nonetheless. There were family pictures on the walls, a nice looking guy with a very pretty wife and three kids. I looked around and found the staircase to the main floor, and went up them as quietly as I could. Once at the top, I opened the door a crack and peered inside, examining a small hallway area, and part of the kitchen. Both seemed clear of any occupation. I opened the door further and stepped into the hall, my handgun at the ready. I sidestepped into the room, then through the dining room and into the living room. Everything seemed lived in yet undisturbed. I moved through to the main entrance and the den, but still nothing. I began my climb up the large staircase, to the second floor. I checked a hallway bathroom, a couple of children’s rooms, and a large closet, before approaching the main double doors of the master bedroom. I turned the knob but it seemed to be locked from the inside. I leaned into the door with my shoulder, hoping the pressure from my weight might pop the door open. As I did so, I felt a slight but hard pressure on the top of the back of my head accompanied by a low growl. Then a voice.

  “Do not under any circumstances move. Let go of the gun and let it fall to the floor. ”

  I didn’t have much of a choice, so I dropped the gun, but I couldn’t figure out why the poking in my head was so high up; the person behind me must have been seven feet tall.

  “Turn around, slowly.”

  I did so and then raised my view up to see a woman, maybe late forties, blonde hair, leaning out of an attic door with a very intimidating rifle pointed at my head.

  “I just needed a place to stay tonight. I don’t like to travel at night; I’m trying to get home to my wife and daughter. “I used my hands and motioned to my whole self, up and down, “see, I didn’t loot anything, I don’t have any other weapons. I just need a place to crash.”

  The woman’s face de-scrunched a little and she looked me over.

  “Turn around, on your knees and face the door.”

  I did as I was told and could hear the creaking of a fold down staircase out of the attic, her footsteps on the old wooden steps, then the return of the rifle barrel to the back of my head. This was followed by the sound of an animal coming down the stairs as well, and the return of the low growling.

  “Okay, you can get up. Keep it slow though.”

  I got up and slowly turned around. The woman appeared to be in her late forties. She was very attractive, with blonde hair tied into a tail, in a plaid button-up shirt and jeans. She stood about five-foot-six but she was solid. She was not a fragile woman; rather she was very healthy looking, curvy, and she had a glow about her. She was accompanied by a large German shepherd who was watching me very carefully. She leaned over slowly and picked up my gun, tucking it behind her back.

  “I’ll keep this, for now." She paused, thinking. “Let’s go downstairs. Do you want something to eat?”

  With those words, I relaxed. She let a small smile creep
onto her face as she introduced herself as Eleanor Croft, or Ellie, for short.

  We went into her kitchen, where she had some food already prepared in the refrigerator, sandwiches with ham and tomato, lettuce and mustard. It was the best sandwich I had ever tasted. It’s funny how much better food tastes when your world is turned upside down. I guess you just take fewer things for granted; you’re thankful that you’re even alive to eat something. Her dog, Max, stood by the table and did not flinch in his constant monitoring of me. I told Ellie of my journey so far, about the mall, the Bramford, my friends. Ellie was divorced from her husband for some five years now, and the kids had been at her ex’s for the week. He lived in a house outside of Oshawa in Brooklin. She got through to them on the first day of the outbreak and they were okay at that time; her ex was moving them all into the basement cold cellar with supplies and sleeping bags. He figured they would be fine there until this blew over. But she hadn’t talked to any of them since. Ellie also had a boyfriend, Nate, who lived in Whitby. She hadn’t heard from or been able to get hold of him at all. She wanted desperately to get to and hold her children, but she dared not go out alone. She only had the one rifle, limited ammo, and already quite a few encounters in her own yard with some of the infected. Earlier that same day she had an infected young woman doing circuits around her house, banging on windows, moaning and groaning. She had taught Max not to bark when the infected came sniffing around, she was Lucky she had a smart dog; a bark could have led to some pretty disastrous ramifications. She thought that the female zombie-thing’s behavior was even stranger than other infected she had seen, that it took longer to give up and move on. She was really frightened by that one. Her description of the girl made me feel queasy; all the color went out of my face and she asked me if I was okay. I braced myself on the kitchen table and asked her again what the girl looked like. Short brown hair, athletic, piercings, tattoos. Isabel. I hadn’t mentioned much in my story about Isabel, except that we had lost her in the events of the Bramford. I told Ellie that it sounded like Isabel had been the thing banging on her windows and she was stunned. Was Isabel still following our plan? How did she get to this area so fast?

  That’s when I told Ellie about my plan to get home, and my route to get there. She hesitantly asked if she could join me, and I was pleased to say yes. I know Ellie didn’t like the thought of trying to get to her family alone, and neither did I. Safety in numbers, isn’t that what they say? We loaded up a couple of backpacks that Ellie had (her family were all avid hikers). It was a much better system than the bag I had been carrying around. In addition, we could carry more, make fewer stops and our hands would be free to use our weapons. We slept soundly that night in the same room and in the same bed with Max standing guard of the room on a woven rug at the foot of the bed. It felt strange sleeping beside another woman, but it was a large bed, and after some awkward discussion about it, we both decided it would be much safer to sleep in the same room, especially with all the visits her home had been getting.

  We rose the next morning to the sound of birds. The early morning sunrise was bright through the bedroom window, a shaft of light hitting me square in the face as I opened my eyes. I turned in the bed and saw Ellie still asleep on her side of the bed, and I had a strange déjà vu of being home. God how I wished I was. I slipped out of the bed quietly and walked to the window, taking in the view of Ellie’s street. All seemed quiet, abandoned. I went downstairs and brewed some coffee, hoping we could get an early start to the day’s travels. I sat at the table and sipped hot coffee, the taste strong on my tongue. My thoughts turned again to home, to Diane and Jordan. The ache in my heart from not even being able to talk to them was unbearable. I started to daydream.

  I was sitting in a large green meadow, yellow flowers blowing in waves across the field. Diane and Jordan were walking towards me, Diane holding a wicker picnic basket and Jordan holding a toy, both of them smiling and holding hands. They arrive on the blanket that I had laid out in the grass and they sat beside me, Jordan hugging me and Diane placing a kiss on my forehead. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my back, and I feel great joy on such a beautiful day with my family. Diane reaches over and hands me the picnic basket, then leans over to Jordan to tie her shoe. I lift the hinged lid of the basket and open it, reaching inside for the delicious lunch Diane had prepared. As I pull my hand out of the basket, I look down and see that I’m holding a bloody arm. I drop it, shocked. I open the lid further and look inside the basket, I see Isabel’s face, bloody and dirty with large yellow eyes, and she screams at me, yellow foam spraying out of the basket. I fall back from my crouch onto my butt and look over to Diane and Jordan, who are now lying on the blanket on their backs, with Thom and Frank hunched over them, ripping their stomachs open with their teeth. I jolt awake, pushing away from the table and tipping my chair backwards, falling onto the linoleum floor. I look up to see Ellie standing over me with a cup of coffee.

  “Are you okay? I asked you three times if you slept well, and you just kept staring ahead like you were in a trance.”

  She reached her hand to me and helped me up. I righted my chair and sat back down.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I thought I was daydreaming, but I must have fallen asleep or been sleepwalking or something. I sat down to have a coffee and drifted off, and then I had this horrible dream.”

  Ellie put her hand on my shoulder, gliding it gently over my back. It reminded me of Diane and how she would comfort me when I was stressed about something. I put my hand over my eyes and tried to wipe the images out of my head. I stood up.

  “We should get going. We have a lot of ground to cover today.”

  Ellie nodded and we went back upstairs. I gathered some clothes Ellie gave me that had belonged to her ex-husband and went to the second bathroom to have a hot shower, Ellie getting ready in the en suite. I felt better after the shower, the first one I had in days. We gathered our packs, Ellie leashed up Max, and we left the house, heading back into the woods, and back on track to get home to Diane and Jordan.

  CHAPTER 26: ELEANOR SUZANNA CROFT

  Eleanor Suzanna Croft was born in Rouen, France, on November 30, 1962. Her parents, Bernard and Sylvie Bergeron were native Parisians, Bernard a carpenter and house painter and Sylvie a research scientist. Rouen was a quaint town that had been around since medieval times and still had many historic buildings to show for it. It was also famous for being the place where Joan of Arc was executed, although the tourism industry spun a more positive approach by offering many tourists information on the life of Joan of Arc instead of focusing on the execution. Eleanor had six brothers, and was the youngest of all the Bergeron children. She excelled in all her years of school, and was brought up a tough and independent girl by her six protective brothers. She was quite domineering as a teenager and didn’t usually hang on to boyfriends too long, whether it was because her brothers scared them off, or because they were overwhelmed by her independence and leave of their own accord. But while attending Paris Descartes University doing pharmaceutical research, she met Jeremy Croft, a Canadian student studying Mathematics. Jeremy seemed to not be put off by Ellie’s strong personality; in fact, it gelled quite well with his own sensibilities. Ellie and Jeremy dated for the entire length of their educations at Descartes, and upon graduation decided to get married.

  They got married in the Church of St. Ouen, a beautiful, gothic, medieval church in Rouen. After their wedding ceremony and an extended honeymoon in Spain, Ellie and Jeremy decided to move to Canada, where Jeremy had a position waiting for him at the University of Toronto. They bought a large farm with a beautiful, century-old home north of Scarborough, where Jeremy commuted to Toronto to the University, and Ellie mostly stayed home to raise their three kids. She also did some work from home, writing medical papers and travelling now and then to do research and attend conferences. Near the end of 2006, Jeremy had confronted Ellie and confessed to an affair he had with a fellow professor at the university. The affair had been sh
ort-lived and had since ended, but Jeremy felt the need to divulge the truth to Ellie. After the initial turmoil that arose from the news, Ellie and Jeremy talked things out and decided it would be best if Jeremy moved out. Shortly after this decision, Jeremy’s affair was also found out at the University, and before things got any worse, he voluntarily left his position and took another job at a private school in Whitby. He moved to a small house north of Oshawa in the town of Brooklin. The kids stayed with Ellie on the farm and had regular visits and extended stays with their father. Ellie eventually met someone else, Nate, whom she came to care for very much. Nate got along great with the kids, but they took their relationship very slow for everyone’s sake. Ellie still had a very good relationship with Jeremy, and they still cared deeply about one another. They handled their lives with dignity and maturity, and made sure that the well being of their children was their first priority. In the end, Ellie was happy living in her farmhouse with her beautiful kids, and finding love again with Nate was the cherry on top. It was just unfortunate that Ellie happened to be alone on the night when the infection hit.

  CHAPTER 27: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

  Ellie and I walked through the dense woods of Scarborough for a few hours, talking and swapping stories of our kids, our childhoods, and marriage. After all the chaos, it was nice to be away from anything that wanted to kill us. I started to felt guilty after a while though; it didn’t seem right to be walking through the woods with a woman, talking and laughing, when I didn’t even know the fate of my own wife and daughter. But I kept telling myself that if we didn’t distract ourselves with light conversation, we would be overcome by the need to talk about how there may be no hope for any of us, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good. After a while, we came to a dead-end at a random chain-link security fence, right in the middle of the woods. It didn’t seem to be behind a house or any kind of dwelling; in fact, there didn’t seem to be anything on the other side of it. Just a chain link fence about six feet tall, with barbed wire on top, stretching as far as we could see in each direction, smack in the middle of the woods. We were quite puzzled by its existence, but we had to keep going, so we helped each other over it, using some extra shirts from our packs to throw over the barbed wire and safely drop to the other side. It was no treat trying to get Max over the fence, but somehow we managed to get him up and over it without harming him. After we hopped the fence we continued on for about 500 meters until we came to a paved road. Only it was more of a path than a road. There were no markings, no curbs, no buildings, just a paved path. We decided to follow it and after another short jaunt, we came across a corrugated metal building, almost the sort you would see housing farm equipment or supplies. We approached it carefully, our guns drawn and ready. We each took a side and circled the building, going around it until we met up again at the front where we stood on either side of a single door. I motioned for Ellie to cover me and I turned the door handle and opened the door. I stepped inside with my handgun out, and saw three golf cart type vehicles parked inside. There were also various supplies and tools. Rakes, shovels, garbage bags, and the like. I walked around one of the dark green carts to the front and looked at the logo on the bumper. It was of a stylized deer head with large antlers. I recognized it immediately from seeing it hundreds of times throughout my life. We were in the Toronto Zoo. I went back out and told Ellie and then we both had a giggle. It was kind of cool that we had inadvertently snuck into the zoo. Anyone who grew up in this area of Ontario was a frequent visitor; it was practically a pre-requisite to living here. Although we thought it would be fun to commandeer a cart, we opted to keep walking, just to ensure we didn’t draw any attention to ourselves. We came across a larger building made mostly of concrete, and went inside. It seemed to be a medical and feed building. There were a few incubator rooms, some operating rooms, and various medical supplies. There were also large sorting rooms, where every manner of meal was prepared for the animals, from large steaks and fish to flash-frozen mice and rodents, to insects and plants. We rustled up a bowl of food for Max, then filled up our water bottles and headed back out. After leaving the building, we continued on through the zoo. There didn’t seem to be anyone here, but most of the animals were still in their environments, and most didn’t seem to notice anything was out of the ordinary. We eventually reached the different continental pavilions--the zoo was laid out by continental groupings, Africa, Eurasia, The Americas, etc. The Americas pavilion was the first we encountered. We decided against going inside it, as we didn’t know what kind of access we would have to get back out should the main door not be an option.