SURVIVORS

By my account, the battle for San Antonio, a city of 1.4 million, lasted about three days. At least that’s when I stopped hearing explosions and the rapid fire of machine guns. I had to assume the military lost the battle entirely or pulled out because I do occasionally hear a helicopter in the distance. What I did hear was sporadic gunfire in the distance. I also didn’t see a lot of zombies in my neighborhood, the Z’s had went somewhere else and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to find out where that was. I can tell you I survived because I very quickly learned noise and light discipline while hiding in my attic. I could have helped my neighbors survive but I would have wasted ammo and let the Z’s know where I was. I knew I couldn’t let that happen, as I would eventually have to come out sometime as I was rapidly running out of water. I came down on the fourth day I checked my house it survived relatively intact so I started to board up the windows and doors with wood I took from my neighbors’ house along with whatever miscellaneous items I came across something i termed "neighbor shopping" what use was it to them now? I had to kill some Z’s in the process with good old blunt force as the rifle would still attract more but I found some more ammo for my 22 in Mr. Funston’s house across the street, canned food in Ms. Stevenson’s house down the block. When I was checking Dr. Robinson’s house I was going through the house looking for any medical supplies he may have had. I was checking the kitchen when I heard noises coming from the basement door which had a 2x4 nailed across it as if to keep something in. I was about to leave when I heard a voice I quickly un-boarded the door and found Dr. Robinson’s 17 year old daughter Rae inside.
She told me her father sacrificed his life to boarder her in the basement when the Z’s go into their house. Rae was the captain of the cheerleader squad at the high school, to say she was pretty was an understatement. We packed what was left in the basement into a few bags and headed back to my place where we inventoried  what I had found.It was promising that I found a survivor  thankfully  I was not alone anymore, so I still had hope of finding my wife and daughter who went out to her dads house in the country when all this started. Even with the house boarded up and relatively secured I still preferred to sleep and store all our things in the attic as it got me this far and had a good view of the neighborhood. The following day Rae and I went neighbor shopping again and we decided to go to the corner store at the end of the block as I heard noises coming from their all night. I approached the front door with the shotgun and tire iron while Rae had a pistol we found in the Patterson’s house that morning. Outside the corner store we say an ambulance I did a quick check inside while Rae acted as a lookout, I was hoping to find the paramedics bag with the defibrillator or even their first aid bag but it was gone. It was only then that I noticed the sounds coming from inside the corner store. it sounded like someone was kicking on a door. Rae got excited at the thought of other survivors and rushed in I followed at a full run, Inside we found three slow Z’s, each looked like they had become some others Z's lunch before turning themselves knocking on the  storeroom door. Rae screamed causing them to turn and come toward us I had to kill them with the tire iron not an easy thing to do with three Z's attacking you an a 17 year old girl screaming at he top of her lungs. that done we could look inside the storeroom, were found another survivor. Susan a paramedic in her late forties whose ambulance the Z’s attacked on the first day. She survived by hiding in the storeroom it occurred to me then that the Z’s didn’t leave they stayed right by the door where they chased prey into. They didn’t move on with the rest of the Z’s, another lesson learned.

Inside the storeroom,  I noticed that Susan had all the things i was looking for from the ambulance, after we made some quick introductions I again took what I could form the front of the store. making sure to get all we carry in our bags we carried.  Everything else we couldn’t carry we put in the storeroom and locked it with a padlock, so we could come back later if we needed to I even filled up several gas cans I didn't know how long the power to the pumps would last, thankfully I did too but thats another story. It should be noted that we made a mutual agreement to get out of the city as soon as we could but for now, we were stuck on foot. Cars littered the streets and some of the streets had craters in them where I’m guessing bombs exploded. Therefore, we would have to find some means of getting to the edge of town before find a car. We had just finished up when Rae who was again on lookout saw a zombie coming around from the back of he building she shot at it and missed, but Susan killed it with the shotgun when she came running out to see what was going on. I took the pistol from Rea and had her carry the gas cans, I swore to myself that would be the last time I had Rae be the lookout. The three of us got about a block away when we encountered our first runner. Damn it was fast I thought of trying to out run it but knew that was useless it would only chase us back to my I mean our hiding place trapping us in like Susan was. So I shot it knowing it would attract more zombies, we got more survivors instead.

Who we attracted surprised me, it was a sign of relief, I thought we were rescued from this nightmare. SAPD the San Antonio Police Department, and who says theirs not a cop around when you need one! They pulled up in a big beautiful black and white excursion I thought surly there is enough room for us in there. It was only when they got out that I knew they weren’t here to help they got out with their weapons drawn not to the buildings around us looking for Z's but on us as if we were #1 on the FBI most wanted list. So much for “to serve and protect,” they demanded we get down on the ground, surrender all our guns, and  they took Rae. I protested but Susan quickly pointed out we were in no position to resist. They took all the supplies we found that morning and Rae, and just to make room for it all they left us one of their own Sergeant Jack Coleman. No matter how much he protested they left him with us, Sgt. Coleman was no criminal, he wasn’t bitten he was simple a good cop who didn’t agree with what the were doing who had a broken leg. I guess hje had become a liability to them. He told us later after we returned to my place that what remained of the Police department was hold up in the county jail and police headquarters. They had turned it into their own private kingdom; they expelled all the males and most of the women from the jail keeping what he called breeding stock. It horrified me to think that this was happening it was another hard lesson to learn, Don't trust anyone! I never saw Rea again.