I woke

  up, heart pounding to the shrill scream of a woman coming from the

  general direction of the single window in my apartment. Normally it

  took me a few minutes to orient and climb out of the fog of sleep,

  but my survival instincts kicked in and my hand flew down to where I

  had moved all the potential weapons materials onto the floor, grabbed

  a steak knife and clutched it close to my chest.

  “Please no!” The woman screeched, desperation and panic

  causing her to slur her words. “You don’t have to do this!”

  Pounding footsteps clanged down the fire escape. They sounded

  close, maybe only level or two from outside my window and my mind

  scrambled trying to remember if the window was locked. Surely it must

  be since I rarely opened it thanks to the city smog. A sweat broke

  out over my body as I realized I couldn’t bring to mind a solid

  memory of the last time I closed and locked it and it would be a very

  bad idea to scramble now to make sure and come face to face with

  whatever was happening just beyond the curtains.

  The woman let out a pitiful, scared yelp and the footsteps

  stopped, replaced by sounds of a struggle.

  “Just give it to me!” a man’s voice growled

  A gunshot rang out and I had to catch a scream in my throat. There

  was a heavy thud onto the metal and for a moment there was silence

  other than the zombie in the apartment below me seemed to have

  stirred at the sound and was growling and thudding around, moving

  towards the direction of the window. A sickening possibility of it

  breaking the glass and getting out onto the fire escape flashed

  through my mind and my mental priority list shifted to make sure the

  first thing on it was to barricade my window. Footsteps, this time

  much more quiet descended and a shadow passed my window before

  continuing down.

  I didn’t move or lower the knife until the zombie below me

  seemed to give up trying to find the source of the noise and settled

  into whatever waiting position such a creature naturally defaulted

  to. Too shaky and nervous to trust myself to walk without falling

  yet, I turned on the TV in the hope beyond all hope that somehow the

  world was getting better, but there was no good news. Instead of the

  normal news footage, there was the blue background with the news

  station’s logo and a ticker at the bottom explaining the emergency

  situation and that they would be back on the air as soon as possible.

  I flicked through other channels and found that all the other major

  news channels were the exact same. The pit of my stomach felt like a

  hot coal as I gave up and turned the screen back off.

  I considered searching up news stories on my phone, maybe there

  would be information out there about how the zombies moved and what

  seemed to work with avoiding or killing them. However, anyone who was

  having success with that would be much more focused on surviving and

  getting to safety rather than posting. Also, it would be impossible

  to tell who was telling the truth and who was just posting to feel

  important in their final days. Unfortunately, social media tended to

  be several layers deep with smoke and mirrors with the truth often

  getting covered up because it was generally less exciting then

  whatever people could come up with on their own. Perhaps I was being

  cynical, but hearing two non-infected people attack each other was a

  stark reminder that humanity was inherently untrustworthy in

  emergency situations.

  Feeling a bit more steady, I stood up and slumped forward heavily

  onto my walker. The muscles in my arms, legs, and abdomen felt tight

  and sore, like I had spent all yesterday doing weight training. That

  was the price of pushing through the do the small amount of prep I

  had done. My muscles were likely to feel overworked and damaged for

  at least a few days and there was little I could do to hurry it along

  other than keep resting. Historically, it had always been a bad idea

  for me to ignore the muscle pain and fatigue and keep pushing, so I

  quickly decided that it was in my best interests to quickly barricade

  the window, grab myself enough food to last me for the day, then

  retreat back to bed to do what I could from there.

  I did not have much in the apartment to barricade with, though I

  did have a few plant stakes in the closet that I had been storing

  next to my planters. They were not quite tall enough to fit perfectly

  in the window to keep it wedged closed, but stacking them at an angle

  until they pushed against each other and wedged down against the

  bottom window pane would at least protect me against it being forced

  open. I sorely wished that I had a bookcase or a heavy dresser that

  was tall enough to shove up against it. Before I moved in I had sold

  most of my good furniture and what I did keep was small and light

  enough to have been easy for Gloria to help move in. The best I could

  do was loop an extra blanket over the curtain rail to help further

  block out anyone from being back to look in and see inside. My

  solutions didn’t make me feel much more secure, but I had to accept

  that it was as good as I could manage for the moment and that I would

  just have to give up for now and hope I could think of some other

  creative plan.

  Back in bed with a tub of tuna salad and a quarter of my remaining

  half gallon of milk, I also pulled all the weapon making materials I

  had gathering onto the bed in front of me. The weight of all the

  objects felt comforting and protective on my legs, but for the first

  time in my life I felt a bit remorseful that I didn’t have a gun at

  my disposal.

  Since no one could have predicted the unlikely scenario of a

  zombie outbreak, I just had never thought I would ever be the type of

  person who could stomach the idea of raising a weapon and killing

  someone from across the room and being able to live with myself

  after. I understood why some people chose to have that at their

  disposal, but it just wasn’t for me. Sure, I had been living in

  what most people would consider the rougher side of the city, but

  being pretty much house bound and kept to myself meant that most

  people didn’t even register that I existed. I severely doubted if

  even the people who lived in my hallway were aware what I looked

  like. Quite possibly they wouldn’t have noticed if I had moved out.

  I simply never got a chance to be healthy enough to feel inclined to

  step out and be social in person. The inability to have the energy to

  be social meant I was functionally invisible to most people. That

  invisibility that disability handed to me had been a sort of shield

  and before the apocalypse started I hadn’t really ever felt like I

  lived in danger or worried too much about who else lived in my

  building.

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  While my disability had been somewhat a boon with safety before,

  that was now flipped on its head and my disability was placing a

  target on my back. If I had been the woman on the fire escape being

  chased down, I knew the fight would have ended a lot sooner and I

  would certainly have been the loser. Against a non-disabled person I

  simply would not be able to easily win if they wanted my supplies or

  to hurt me unless I was clever or somehow got a jump on the

  situation. It was gut-wrenching to think about, but it was

  nonetheless true. I could not run long distance, I had very little

  stamina, and my muscles and joints were weak. When it came down to

  it, I think it was logical to much more afraid of the remaining

  surviving humans than the zombies. The slow realization of that cold

  fact brought a sadness over me that felt like a heavy blanket.

  With a heavy heart I went to work planning weapons that I would be

  able to easily carry and use while still having my walker with me. It

  was maybe impractical to keep my walker with me at all times, but

  without it I was much more prone to losing my balance, especially on

  inclines and stairs. Besides, it could come in handy in situations

  where I might need to pin someone, zombie or human, against a wall so

  I had time to get away.

  I ended up deciding on two major weapons and a few smaller ones.

  My main, long range weapon used my quad foot cane to give me reach

  and leverage. With the box cutter I sliced through the rubber bottoms

  on the feet, packed the hollow metal tight with wads of duct tape,

  broke off the plastic handles of my cheap steak knives, then

  superglued the tangs of the knifes into each of the feet and used

  some of my remaining duct tape to wrap around the blade of the knife,

  over the rubber bottom and around the metal of the cane so that they

  wouldn’t easily pull out when used. It felt a little clunky and I

  didn’t like how much of the roll of tape I had to use to make it

  feel secure, but it did feel sturdy and I knew for certain I

  definitely wouldn’t want to be on the other end of someone

  brandishing it at me.

  In a flash of brilliance, I remembered that my broom and dustpan

  set had two c-shaped pieces of flexible plastic that were bonded

  together that kept the two cleaning tools stored together. Once

  retrieved, they miraculously clicked into place perfectly, allowing

  me to attach the makeshift spear onto the front right leg of my

  walker for easy access. The cane was thankfully still just light

  enough to stay held up off the ground when I used the walker and

  prevented the knife points from scraping and making extra noise.

  The second weapon was much more simple to construct other than the

  careful breaking of the smaller of my ceramic planting pots, though

  it was easy enough once wrapped up in my blanket and I used my body

  weight to lean onto it. I shoved the five large, sharp shards into

  one of my socks and filled in the extra space with a box of screws

  that had been kicking around my junk drawer for years. It had a nice

  heft to it and when used would probably break down into smaller and

  sharper shards. Maybe not as effective against zombies who seemed not

  to care about pain, but against a human wanting to attack me, I hoped

  it would be very effective.

  Finally, the last weapon preparation was to take the existing bag

  I already used looped over the side handle of my walker and zip tie

  it in place so that it would not slip off. I removed all the random

  tissues, cough drops, and receipts that had accumulated over the

  years and replaced them with the remaining steak, kitchen knives, and

  box cutter. There was just enough space for the small can of bear

  mace I normally kept in my purse for self defence. It would be a poor

  outcome for me as well if I decided to use it in an enclosed space

  and I felt it unlikely to affect zombies at all, but I knew I might

  hesitate to use more deadly force against a fellow human. I wanted to

  make sure I had a non-deadly option just in case.

  The sun rose fully into the new day and as the remaining survivors

  outside woke for the day, the world outside my apartment again began

  to fill with the terrifying sounds of society breaking down. Glass

  broke, people screamed, zombies roared with inhuman volume, and the

  sounds of cars crashing through blocked streets echoed off the tall

  buildings. I imagined that people were still in the looting phase,

  trying to gather as much as they could as quickly as they could

  before running for safety. In a perfect world with a perfect body I

  would be doing the same. I would have to sit and wait for it all to

  die down a bit before I went after the dregs of what would be left.

  Still, I assumed it was likely that people would be in too much of a

  hurry to carefully check over everything and there still would be

  useful items left behind. That was, of course, assuming I could make

  it out of the building at all.

  It was not lost on me that my chances of living much longer were

  much lower than the average person and I had already seen hundreds if

  not thousands of those die on the news. There hadn’t been any

  person in a wheelchair or with a cane making it into that safe zone,

  those people had been left behind as zombie fodder or were still like

  me holed up in their homes terrified about what their options were.

  I had to turn back on the TV to a station that had replaced all

  it’s programming with old cartoons to keep from thinking about all

  the old, frail, special needs, and disabled people who were like me

  feeling nothing but abject terror and having no option but to accept

  that the spectre of death was creeping towards us faster than ever.