As the World Dies by Rhiannon Frater Page B

twenty different people pop onto his list. After that, he never felt alone again as he chatted occasionally with the others. But mostly, he talked to Peggy. She was obviously the town gossip and had all the news about what was going on in the fort. She began to feel like an old friend as they chatted on and off during the day.
        
        "You still free and clear over there," she asked one morning.
        
        "Yeah, so far," Eric typed back. "They're all still in the community center. I don't think they're getting out any time soon."
        
        "That's good. When we come pick you up, we shouldn't have any major problem there. Some of the other survivors are surrounded and that ain't going to be an easy rescue," Peggy wrote back.
        
        Even though he had a renewed sense of hope, he felt overwhelmed at times with the loss of Brandy and his family. He would sit at Brandy’s grave while Pepe did his business and tell her how sorry he was. Sometimes, he could not even speak he was so overcome with emotion, but he knew in his heart that she was at peace now even if he was not.
        
        He kept trying to call his family, but no one ever answered at his sister or brother's place. The phone's busy signal at his parent's house told a sad story he did not want to consider for long. None of his friends wrote back and his email box remained empty. A few messages from old school chums were posted on his MySpace, but most of them were holed up and fighting to survive. The questions on the boards and chat rooms for survivors were the same.
        
        Was the army coming soon?
        
        How long before FEMA would open secure shelters?
        
        Was the government up and running?
        
        Was anyone getting updated news reports in their area?
        
        He watched Calhoun's regular broadcasts every night while eating dinner. The old guy always rambled on about clones, aliens and Amazons, but he was highly amusing. His instructional video on how to kill a zombie was fairly disgusting, but darkly humorous at the same time.
        
        "Cutting off their arm does you no damn good if they got the other arm," Calhoun said at one point during the demonstration. He danced around a zombie caught in the barbed wire fence surrounding his property as chickens and a dog wandered past not seeming to notice the moaning, hungry zombie. "See?" Calhoun whacked off one arm with a machete and the zombie kept reaching with the other one. "It still gots the other one to get ya. You gotta smack em in da damn head." With a deft whack of the machete, the zombie was no more.
        
        "Public access was never this exciting back in the old days," Eric decided and looked down at Pepe who was still hell-bent on destroying the antique toy.
        
        The dog eyeballed him for a moment then went back to gnawing.
        
        The next day, Eric made sure to find a machete in the tool barn and rig a holster for it.
        
        Every day he took Pepe on a walk down the driveway. He was always sure that Pepe was calm and not bothered by their surroundings before they would start down the road that would take them to the accident site where Brandy had died. It bothered Eric to see the car, but at the same time, it was a good location to take a look at the community center through the binoculars.
        
        Despite the danger that he knew lurked near by, he was growing bolder. One day, he and Pepe rode down in the ATV to load up at the corner store on supplies. He had broken out the window with an ax he had taken with him and hurriedly grabbed things he needed. He had been terrified the entire time, but when no zombies ever appeared, he began to sincerely believe they were all trapped inside of the community center. Pepe had enjoyed riding on his lap and Eric made sure to gas up the ATV before returning it to where he had it parked under the