ZOMBIE BOOKS

were told the world was on fire.  What would your neighbor’s do?  What would you do?  The radio says to arm and protect yourself.  The commentators drone that cities are falling to hordes of diseased humans.  That people are dying in the streets, not from bullets and bombs, but from infectious cannibals that could not be killed.  What would your town do?
Someone once said that if you want to know the true nature of a man, watch his reaction to discomfort.  When the waiter gets your order wrong.  When your car breaks down.  When your family disappoints you.  When the countryside becomes infested with mostly-dead humans, septic with a virus that transformed the local librarian into a flesh eating ravenous monster.  Watch what men do now.
Well, when the full extent of the outbreak became clear, I had a front row seat to the true nature of man.  First, people seemed certain that the government would figure it out.  Residents would talk about how they would help, then it was panic-driven looting for supplies.  Some tried at first to buy their goods, but when the guy next to you tries to cart every little bottle of propane in the store, you can imagine that folks might get a little crazy.  Frustrations lead to arguments.  Arguments to fights.  Fights to brawls.  And then you’re only a step away from a riot.  Soon, men and women were breaking into houses trying to find food and supplies.  I watched a man run down a kid with an aluminum bat over food the boy had stolen.  He beat the child until his bat was red to the grip over a few jars of peanut butter.  Men who were willing to maim kids over food were also ready to kill for trespassing on their land.  Houses became small, crude fortresses.  Families became like platoons.  Armed, they would patrol their properties no matter how small, working to keep everyone out, living or dead.  The echo of gunshots became common background noise as homeowners would confront those who dared to approach their house.  Police stopped responding to reports of such behavior.  Instead, they encouraged it by telling everyone to do the same.  “Bar your doors,” the said on the television, “and do not permit any unknown person to enter your home.  The infected are not always easily identified.  Stay indoors.  You are risking your very lives if you are wandering the streets.  Not only do you expose yourself to the virus, you may be taken accidently for someone infected.  Be smart.  Stay at home, and admit no one unless you are absolutely sure they are not a risk.”
And then the shootings began.
Homeless and transients were shot the most often.  It’s cruel, but they wander the streets, dirty and walking too slowly, so what would you expect?  And with many of them in need of medication to be socially appropriate, their erratic behavior only worked to heighten people’s paranoia.  Time after time a vagrant would try a door or call for assistance, only to be shot down with a deer rifle.  Some homeless got desperate and tried to break into homes that looked abandoned.  The first and last thing they would see was the barrel of a shotgun.  Other residents found the same level of hospitality when they looked to their neighbors for aid, though not so many of them died in the process.  The reality of the situation became clear: There was no help to be found in the community.  Welcome to a world where you are on your own.
The exclamation point on that sentiment was the desertion of Fairchild Air Force Base.  It was right after the television started using terms like “outbreak”, “quarantine,” and “virus” that the base was emptied.  There was a big hustle in the morning that stretched into the late afternoon.  Small planes were the first to leave, followed by the larger carriers in the night.  By the next morning, the base was by all accounts completely forsaken.  Dozens of small fires could be seen streaming smoke into the morning fog.  We guessed if they were burning whatever they didn’t bring then there was no chance of them coming back.
So much for the military.
My parents decided that there was strength in numbers, and the only help we were going to find was with family.  Most of our clan lived in and around Yakima, about 190 miles to the west.  Communications were still working then and we had arranged to meet at my uncle’s house in the West Valley area of Yakima.  His home had a large sturdy fence surrounding several acres.  His shop was massive and he assured us that there was enough food in his basement shelter for the whole family to survive for months.   We hurriedly packed that night and prepared to leave before morning came.  We didn’t think about being subtle.  We only focused on being fast.
There was no chance that we would have seen the man across the street, spying us between the slats used to board up his windows.
There was no way for us to know that an ambush was being planned.
In a rush that bordered on panic, my parents with my younger brother and me, rushed box after box to our van and small trailer.  Food.  Weapons.  Tools.  Anything we thought we might need.  My mother insisted on downloading our picture library onto flash drives.  My father thought she was crazy, but didn’t stop working to tell her such.  My brother and I packed everything our father handed us.  We never thought to hide our efforts from anyone.  All we would do is pack and leave, right?
When we finally finished, I was the last to leave the house.  Upon emerging, I found the van surrounded by four men in masks holding up my family at gunpoint.
It was over before I knew what had happened.
I’ll never be sure who fired the initial shot, but after the first crack went off, the driveway erupted in gunfire.  In the melee,