The Johnsons, Your Next Door Neighbors

1 Year Before AP

Adam Smith

“Morning neighbor. What you got all those constructions guys doing in your backyard?”

“Oh, I’m just building a shelter,” I said.

“Like fallout shelter? Like a nuclear bomb shelter? Man, do you live in the 60s or what.” He laughed.

Mr. Todd Johnson, my neighbor, was a former quarterback for his high school football team. He played college ball but never got far with it, the backup of an eventual late round draft pick. Todd Johnson worked auto sales after college and coached part-time for a high school football team. Eventually, he became an assistant coach for a successful college football program and got a multimillion-dollar deal to head coach the football team at Hope University, the University in this state I attended. He lives beside me in a large house, like mine (though with a much smaller backyard, mine with several acres towards fields and woods where my vault would be), in our neighborhood and drives a pickup truck. He has a buzz cut of brown hair and is a large built man but with the signs of greying 50s and a beer belly that forms for men his age.

His wife, Cadence Johnson, was shockingly, a former cheerleader for the high school football team. She had the dyed blonde hair of Midwestern and southern women and a fine attractive figure of graceful age and possibly some surgical work. She is the local weather girl. I see her jog on my street often. Her body is firm and fit despite her age.

Their children are Tracy, a senior in college and Jill, a freshman in college who attend the same school that Todd coaches at.

The encounters I have of Todd were never friendly. He would always lodge complaints about the construction noise and would regularly throw parties at his house with his college students or old football friends and leave cars blocking my driveways. Todd liked to “jokingly’ call me a nerd occasionally, still clinging to his former days of pushing guys like me into lockers. He had obnoxious religious and patriotic bumper stickers plastered all over his pickup truck. Every time a black boy or Latino boy scouts came around to sell popcorn, he would follow them around, an overzealous neighborhood watch doing his duty.

“Waste your money nerd, young guy like you will end up on the bankrupt by 30 if he spends money like on useless shit like that.” He said with a beer in his hand.

I ignored him for the most part.

1st year of AP–Day 1

Adam Smith

My intercom buzzed. I was in my control room monitoring the situation that was unfolding on several TV monitors with new stations playing. Most were down now or in emergency broadcast mode. Only a handful of sites were left up. I made my own personal site advertising my “Safe Zone.”

I checked the buzzing intercom camera feed. There was a frantic man who was beating on the door and three scared children. I checked the perimeter cameras and waves of the undead were coming. I could see on the camera he was beating the door hard and read his lips yelling, “OPEN THE DOOR!”

So they had come. I made sure the first people that knew my shelter would be open to them were the Johnsons. Leaving messages on their machines and notes on their door which were unresponded during the start of what I predicted was the apocalypse.

I left my control room and placed the serum into the water supply and went to the front steel plated door. I entered the code and buzzed the Johnsons in the doorway. The door slid opened, and the four of them came inside and panted.

“Thank Christ almighty you opened. It’s a fucking nightmare out there.” Mr. Todd Johnson.

“Hello Mr. Johnson, how can I help you?”

“We need to use this place neighbor.” He held a pistol at me. It shocked me. I didn’t notice it on the monitor. God, I am an idiot. Why the fuck is he pointing a gun at me anyways?

“Todd, are you crazy?!” Mrs. Johnson shouted, her two daughters pressed up against her in fright.

“Cadence you saw it it’s every man for themselves. I gotta protect my family.”

“Well, Mr. Johnson there’s plenty of room in here for all of us. Why don’t we calm down? If you shoot and kill me, you won’t be able to access any of your rooms or the storage room with the food. You’ll die quickly without my help.” I tried to get out.

Todd thought to himself. He lowered his pistol.

“I’m sorry about that neighbor. I was a little a panic-stricken that’s all… This whole thing got me wound up.”

“Can you give me the gun or throw it away?” I said.

Mr. Johnson shook his head. Still holding firmly onto the pistol.

“Okay, why don’t I go get you all something to drink, and we can all calm down. Have a seat.”

I showed them the lounge room and the empty beds they can sleep in tonight if they decided to stay. I brought out a pitcher of “the water” and gave it to them. They drank all of them and gasping at it. They look like they've been running.

“I understand you need the gun Mr. Johnson, dangerous world and all, but how about unloading it?” I said.

He contemplated. His mind struggled with it, and finally, he came to a decision. “You’re right. We’re all friends here, safe inside here. They won’t get us.”

He unloaded his weapon; the bullets clanging on the coffee table.

I let out a sigh of relief. It had worked. But it was only one glass, and it was a small well-reasoned favor. I would have to monitor this more and wait until all four of them drank more.

“Well, help yourself to more water. Are you guys hungry?”

The daughters and mother nodded, Todd still staring blankly and trying to remembering something.

I brought out canned-salted ham with a dry biscuit and instant mashed potatoes and another large pitcher of water. “Well enjoy, I’ll be in my room.”

“Aren’t you going to join us?”

“I already ate. You guys enjoy. Make yourselves at home. Mi casa, essu casa and all that.” I said walking away, smiling.