I know now what Gilligan and company felt like on that old T.V. show. What was supposed to be, at most, a overnight excursion turned into a three day trip from hell. We headed out with a definite destination in mind and knew what we were looking to take back. We were blocked before making to the town limits by the biggest group of undead any of us have seen yet. There must have been at least 15 of them and we only had the 4 of us. This changed out route and we had to make a really quick U turn to find another back road into town. This happened twice more before we were able to make it through, the smallest group was made up of only 10. By the time we made it to town, the sun was getting close to setting so we decided to find somewhere to camp for the night.
After a 10 minute discussion, we decided that the most defense-able building in town is the library. The building was put up in the late 1800's and is made of brick with iron grills over the windows, which are high up in the walls, supposedly to provide better light for reading. We turned down the side street it is off of and came face to face with another group of undead. This one had at least 10 and I recognized a couple of the men in the group. They were from Lexington, the largest city near Elwood. That is when I realized what had more than likely happened. Elwood did not have an emergency center because there is not enough people, but Lexington has around 10,000 people. They asked people to either stay home or go to the emergency center there. Most of those undead we had seen today must have come from that camp, which means it was overrun. We were lucky to have only seen groups numbering in the teens.
Another U turn and a quick drive around the block had us pulling into the back library parking lot. We scrambled into the building and made sure that the doors were all secured. After checking the entire building and finding ourselves the only ones present, we settled in for the night. That is when the real discussion started. Rico wanted to continue with the original plan and go to the feed store before returning to the ranch. Carlos wanted to go to the feed store but then go to the emergency camp to see if there were any supplies or weapons still there. Miguel wanted to give up for now and head back to the ranch empty handed and yellow backed. Darren said he was good with either going to the feed store or the feed store and the camp but was not O.K. with just chucking it all after what we had gone through just to make it to town. I thought it best to do what we had set out to do and get more cousins to back us up at the camp, but I was out voted and we had another destination to add to our outing.
Sleep didn't come quickly to any of us that night. Every little sound had us jerking up to make sure we had not missed one of the freaks when we searched the library. 6 a.m. came early and I gave up pretending to sleep. Darren was already up and keeping watch on the street out front while Rico was in the back doing to same. Seems like I was not the only one with trouble sleeping that night. We left quickly and quietly out the back and made our way to the feed store with only one detour for undead.
Once inside, it was quick work to find what we needed. This was one of those places that we had all spent time in growing up, with our parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts. We were in and out in less than 2 hours with everything on the list that Papa had given to us. Next we headed to Lexington against my better judgement.
What should have taken between 20 and 30 minutes turned into another day of detour hell. We ran into larger and larger groups of the undead the closer we got to Lexington. I had a really bad feeling and even Darren, who is the least cowardly person I have ever know, started saying it might have been a bad idea to try to get to the camp. By the time the we made it to the outskirts of Lexington, the sun was less than 2 hours from setting. None of us had spent much time there, so we had no idea where we were going to make our camp. Downtown, we found an old brick bank building with minimal windows and settled in for another long night of no sleep.
When we got up and around yesterday, it became clear how much of a mistake going to Lexington had been. There were at least 200 of the undead freaks wandering aimlessly around in front and that was just in our line of sight. Rico went to check out the back of the building and when he came back, I knew it was just as bad back there from the look on his face. We were fucked.
The rest of the day was spent trying to come up with a plan to get us out to our truck and away from this place as fast and safely as possible. How we were going to get to the truck in the side parking lot and not get swarmed by the undead was less clear. Ideas were thrown around that included someone sacrificing themselves for the group and finding a radio to set up a diversion in another part of the downtown area. But the idea we agreed on was to get from our building to one of the neighboring ones and set that one on fire. Hopefully, it would be enough to draw the attention of the horde out front so we could make it to the truck.
Carlos was chosen to make the fire and we all went to the roof to see how close the other buildings were. The bank backed up to an old drive in diner that had seen better days even before the pandemic. It was made from wood and there were places in the walls that light was shining through from the dry rot. It also happened to be only 8 feet across the alley from the bank. We found a ladder and Carlos walked across it between the buildings like he was on a tightrope. Once across, he set the fire on the back balcony where the fire quickly spread. Carlos barely made it back across the ladder before the balcony he had been on was completely engulfed in flames. In less than 10 minutes, the entire second floor was on fire and it was putting out a lot of smoke. The sound of the building burning was like a train passing close by on the tracks. The diversion worked and within 15 minutes, all of the freaks out in front had turned and were headed for the diner like sleep walkers. We took the first good chance we had and raced to the truck parked at the curb, only drawing the attention of a couple of the undead freaks. Darren and I took them out quietly, with knives, before they could start the moaning and draw more attention from the others. It took us the rest of yesterday just to make it back to the Elwood library.
This morning we got up and headed to the town grocery store to look for non perishables. We were in luck and found the store intact and empty of the undead. We loaded up everything that seemed remotely edible and headed back to the ranch. I made sure that they all knew I was right about not trying to go the camp in Lexington and said I would remind them of this situation the next time I did not want to try something so stupid. I was so happy to get back to the ranch that I almost cried when it came into sight.
The other group of cousins was not as successful as we were with their search. Turns out that none of the neighbors had survived. Some of the farms had too many undead for their group to handle, so they were only able to search a little over half of them. At least they had been smart enough to know their limits and not attempt the impossible or stupid.
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this blog. Please, come read the other blog I write for our artisan
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