Day 22

Dawns letter is as follows:

Jan. 19, 2012

Aaron,


We had to leave, and I'm sorry. They were coming nearer and nearer to us and so your Grandpa decided to leave. We are going to the Redwoods to camp and to wait for you to find us. There will be a red cloth tied to a tree on the west side of the road and every day an hour or so after the sun comes up someone will be there for about an hour. If no one is there than follow the red cloths on trees back to our camp. There will be a few of us there. (More than just your grandparents and us).


The boys are OK, I am OK. At least as OK as you can be in this. They miss their Daddy, and I miss you more than I can tell you in this letter. Please come find us. We need you. 


I love you, Aaron. I know you will make it to us. Be careful and I will see you soon!


I love you with all my heart,
Dawn


My first reaction is to stand and go to the Hummer and find her and my boys. But as soon as I put weight on my right leg the pain shoots through my leg and right side. I swear loudly and Josh comes in. He sees me sitting up with no weight on my right leg, holding it up off of the floor.

"You OK?" he asks walking over to me with some food.

"Not really. I really want to get going."

"Can you put any weight on it?"

"Not yet. It feels better than it did yesterday," I say, touching the bandages slightly. "It's probably because the bullet is out."

"Probably. We may need to wait a few days before we can leave."

"No." I have already made up my mind. "I will rest today, trying to put some weight on it occasionally but tomorrow morning we are leaving. I need to find my wife."

Josh doesn't argue and I know he knows that there is no point to it. He lets me know that he will tell the others and they will get things ready today. Several minutes later Charlotte comes in with a cane and hands it to me. I try to stand with its aid, but am only able to stay up for several seconds. But it's an improvement. I would like some crutches or something, but there are none. This will have to do. She then goes to work changing my bandages. There is no blood on these ones, but as she takes it off, I see that the inner layers still show that I am bleeding.

"I'm really sorry about all of this," she says, lightly cleaning the edges of the bites and slowly starting to put more of the the gauze on. She is still in her clothes, covering any of her skin but the gas mask is hanging at her side. She has, instead replaced it with a medical mask. It's odd being around someone who feels they need all of that protection, but at the same time, we did not know that it could be airborne or that we were most likely immune until a few days ago.

"Where did you find all of this?" I ask pointing to the mask and gauze.

"It is on the counter in the kitchen," she says. "Looks like they all raided a pharmacy or something from the look of it. There is quite a bit in there, but I'm sure that most of it they took with them."

Seeing the mask on Charlotte gave me hope for Dawn being OK and protected if it was airborne. While I was immune, and I knew that my kids could have gotten the gene (if it was even gene related as I felt it to be most likely) Dawn most likely does not have it. With the amount of people we know have died, it seems as though it is a very rare thing to have.

Chad, Josh and Charlotte each come in to keep me company throughout the day, and I try to stand and walk about every hour. I am able to stand, and take a few steps before falling hard on the carpet. But there is progress and I know that if I have to practice through the night I will. I need to find my wife.

There is a shout, from Chad, I think coming from the kitchen. I see Charlotte and Josh run by, not stopping to say anything to me. Charlotte has her crossbow loaded, and Josh is holding my machete. I try and ask what is happening but they are through the door into the kitchen before I can say anything. There is some banging and then it stops. I hear Josh, or maybe Chad say, "outside" and a door opens and after several seconds it closes again. There are no shots fired and so I assume that Chad is using his katana along with Josh and my machete. Charlotte's crossbow would make no noise.

Suddenly there is banging on the other side of the couch and, looking over I see, through a sliding glass door I see a zombie trying to get in. It is banging on it with its fists and head.

"Help!" I yell. It is still banging, and I am not sure if they can hear me. I look around but there are no weapons near me. Instinctively I reach for my pistol but it is not beside me. I look at the cane and hear a crack at the door. Looking towards the zombie, there is a large crack stretching the length of the large window.

I have only seconds.

I wheel my body around and place my cane on the floor. Pushing hard on the cane I stand up, leaving almost no weight on the injured leg. I hobble away from the couch, wincing with each step I move slowly to the kitchen, listening to the banging behind me. My leg is on fire, but I push forward. I start to open the door and hear a crash as the sliding door breaks into hundreds of tiny shards.

"Help!" I yell through the crack of the door before spinning around, putting weight on both legs, grunting, or rather screaming in exasperation and anger, and swing the cane at where I think its head will be. It connects hard with the things neck, causing it to stumble to the side. I swing again, and connect with the things head. We both fall over, him from the hit and I from putting almost all my weight on my right leg to swing the cane.

I am scrambling to get up when I hear the thing give that awful yell. I spin to my back, sit up as much as I can and swing at the thing again. It raises its hand to stop the swing, but I connect all the same. To the temple with a crushing blow. I can feel it indent. It crumbles to the ground, but I know it will get back up soon.

It takes several seconds, several long seconds for me to get up. First I get to my knees and try crawling, but the carpet rubs against my calf and even with the bandaging I can feel it. I get my left leg under me and push up hard, balancing on just the one leg. I make it up and, with the canes help, get through the door to the kitchen and see what I was looking for. There, on the counter is a block of knives. I find the largest, pull it out and walk back to the kitchen door. I begin to open it, and as I do the door is violently pushed open. I fall backwards, still holding the knife, and the zombie, attacking, follows. It lands on top of me as I stretch out the knife, piercing its eye and then brain.

The full force of the zombies weight lands on me. I can't wiggle free with my leg and so I try rolling if off using just my arms. Finally, I get the thing off of my as Chad, Josh and Charlotte (with her gas mask) each walk in their clothes stain with fresh blood. Their features sharpened by the setting suns light.