The air was warm and sticky when Robert awoke. He didn’t even need to reach across to the other side of the bed to know that Britney wasn’t there. He could see the small outline of her petite figure imprinted on the well-worn mattress. She was up and about. This room was designed for sleeping only. Things may have to change soon. He knew that, but he liked the security this tiny homemade bunker offered at night.
Getting out of bed, he crawled out of the tunnel and made the 25-meter journey to the wooden latch that opened into the ranch house. The blast of fresh air made him more alert. The open and airy timber house was the epitome of country coziness in its decor. Most would say present times weren’t ideal, but essentially Robert didn’t hate the circumstances.
Sure, the dead coming to life and nearly annihilating humankind wasn’t good news by anyone’s standards. But those that made it through were given the opportunity to appreciate the smaller things in life when your interaction was with people and not technology.
He knew the plague of the undead was causing more global pain and suffering than all of humanity’s wars and atrocities combined, but since the “disease” was unleashed, he had actually found his own quality of life improved. Prior to the collapse of society, Robert had run a successful cattle ranch. He had beef and dairy contracts with one of the biggest grocery chains in the country, which provided him with a sizable income. He had loved the work and so had his wife. But Janet, his high school sweetheart, had been taken from him five years earlier by breast cancer. Losing her had torn him apart – he saw no future in carrying on. His eldest son, Bobby, was deeply affected as well. He channeled his loss into rage and rebellion and decided to join the army. He probably also had enough of the farm and hoped to see the world. Robert just hoped his rebellion and exploration of the world wouldn’t get him killed by enemy fire. His younger son, Peter, had been drawn closer to his recently widowed father and stepped up, deciding he would join him on the ranch. Before her death though, his wife had been adamant that Peter complete his education first.
Zombie. The word sounded ridiculous in his head, but that was how the last few news and information bulletins referred to them. Then all TV stations went off the air. With no wife, a son in the armed forces and a son in college, he essentially lived alone until the world changed overnight.
Grabbing an apple from a basket resting on the edge of the marble breakfast bench, he shook his head to clear the memories and bring him back to the present. He took a bite and let his ears attune to the sounds of the house. If his deductions were correct, Peggy would still be sound asleep upstairs. He padded up the stairs in his slippers. Pausing by Peggy’s door, he gently pushed it open to view her in bed. The covers heaved up and downwards and the ninety-two year old’s face looked peaceful and content.
Peggy was more pleasant to be around when she was asleep than when she was awake. With the onset of dementia, she had become hard work for the small make-shift household to take care of. He knew it wasn’t her fault and that any semblance of her old routine had been shattered by having to adapt to radical new ways of living. Nonetheless, Robert found it exceedingly frustrating at times and often resented her being in the house.
Stepping into what used to be his bedroom, he flung open the door to the built-in wardrobe. He had long since moved his actual sleeping quarters to a more fortified position. He had literally dug into the ground for protection. At fifty-two, he was a man of simple tastes and wanted to live, so he had no problem sleeping in a hole in the ground just in case. Although he was already in a fortified compound, the key to survival, in his opinion, was multiple layers of defense. Looking through the wardrobe, he finally dragged on a pair of worn jeans and yanked out a flannel check shirt. The outfit was comfortable and practical for the work he had ahead.
He scurried down the stairs, and his feet went easily into his leather boots. Outside was positively glorious. On days like today, he thought, you could almost imagine that the world hadn’t gone to total shit. The sun shone down brightly, making beads of sweat develop on his brow and down his back so that his shirt stuck to his skin.
The ranch was not what it once was, that was for sure. The open spaces no longer stretched on as far as the eye could see. As a farmer, Robert was adaptable and had a seemingly innate command of survival techniques ingrained in his character long before things went to hell. He'd downsized the borders of the property considerably but kept it large enough to permit a fruit orchard, vegetable patch and fields for the pigs, cows and goats. The land was secured by huge trucks parked together, marking a “safe” area for him to engage in basic farming, as well as a space to have some semblance of a day-to-day life.
When news of the plague hit, Robert drove for over a day to reach the main supermarket that sourced his goods. Havoc reigned supreme with looters. Seeing which way the wind was blowing, Robert found a fully stocked van, whose previous owner was nowhere to be found. You had to do what you had to do these days, and he promptly drove it to his property. The height of the trucks prevented the zombies from climbing them. The trucks he'd accumulated over time were parked strategically so that the ladders faced inwards. Aware that they were capable of crawling, Robert bailed up barbed wire under and over every vehicle to prevent any strays coming his way and invading his semi-peaceful surroundings.
The idea seemed ingenious to Robert. He made the trip a few times to the supermarkets to gather as many heavyweight vehicles as possible and fill them with food and drink and drive them home to secure the ranch. He decided to extend his attempts to fortify his property by obtaining other trucks that held relevant stock or produce that could benefit Robert and his animals.
He even had the good fortune of coming across a gas station that had numerous tanker trucks abandoned in the car park. The mammoth vehicles not only provided protection from the undead, but afforded Robert the luxury of a good diesel supply to run generators as well as a light truck for short foraging journeys.
It was during his discovery of the service station that he first stumbled across Britney.