ZWD: King of an Empty City Read Online Free PDF Page A

if they were asleep, but they never gave us the warning that a horde of zombies had wandered down that trail and into the back of the park. I don’t know how many zombies there were, I just know we were all surprised. There were a lot of gunshots, and I know some of those shots hit people.
    I learned a lot that night. Most of those men with guns didn’t know how to shoot. You can shoot a zombie in the chest all day and they keep coming. Also, zombies can’t find you in the rain so well. We actually snuck behind one as we tried to escape and it never turned around, even though we were making a lot of noise moving over the dead leaves that covered the ground. I think that was the most important thing we learned that night. We used it to our advantage often later. We also found out that zombies can’t climb hills very well. That’s how we escaped. We started climbing up the hill. Several tried to follow us once they saw us, but they kept falling down or sliding. We made it to the top with even less stuff than we came into the camp with. But we were alive. We got to the top and hid under a carport for the rest of the night.
     
    That next morning we broke into a house and barricaded the door behind us. We slept on the living room floor. I guess about noon we woke up and found some food in one of the cabinets. It wasn’t much, a bag of stale chips. We talked about going back to the camp, but decided that was a bad idea. Instead we made our way back to our neighborhood. It took us a few days because we weren’t familiar with the streets between where we were at Greathouse Bend Drive and downtown where our house was. Once we found the road that connected to Cammack Village we weren’t long getting back to the house, if you can call four days not long. We stayed low and moved slowly from house to house, not wanting to be surprised by people or zombies. We didn’t see a soul in Cammack Village; it was like a ghost town. We knew people were there in that neighborhood. We could feel them watching us, but we never saw them. In the Heights it looked like people had lost their minds. Buildings were burned down. Cars were overturned or smashed into each other; it looked like chaos lived there. Once we got on Cantrell Road we felt we were almost home. We didn’t want to be on a main road, but we still didn’t see anybody.
                  Once we got to Chester Street we broke into a law office. We spent the night there in the copy room. It was an inner room where we could turn on the lights and relax. After so many days in the park and on the open road it was strange to find someplace so quiet. The copy machine put out some heat and in the inner confined room, we made a nest using cushions from their office furniture. The snack machines offered a little food, but it was mainly the isolation and warmth of the little room that we needed. We slept a lot there.  
                 
    The next day we decided to look for food downtown. That was our first trip down there. I think we made it all the way down to Spring Street before we started to see signs of how bad it got downtown. Burned out cars, burned out buildings, the Old State House still in flames. Smoldering down to just barely a frame. Blood was all over the glass and walls of the Peabody, where it still had glass. That’s when she said, “We need to get off the main streets again.” So we moved up a block. We made it all the way to Sherman, one block from the I-30 ramp, and from there we could see trucks and cars on fire all along the interstate. Some bodies were draped over the rails; others were being eaten by zombies. That part of the interstate was up high and for them to get to us they would have to come down a long circular ramp. We would be long gone before that could happen, but they weren’t our concern right then; we still needed food. I suggested Juanita’s Bar and Grill, so we moved towards the river down to the bar.
    The closer we got, the