Now It Begins Read online

  Now It Begins

  May 1, 2016

  By Gary Chesla

  When Dave Kelly graduated from college, he decided to leave the family farm in Ohio and make his own way in the world.

  Dave accepted a job in Starke, Florida. He took Maggie, his zombie book fanatic wife, his three year old son Joey and moved to Florida.

  The job didn’t pan out as expected. During the last two years Dave and his family struggled to eat and pay the bills.

  They thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  They couldn’t have been more wrong.

  When a fantastic job opportunity presented itself, Dave and Maggie couldn’t believe their luck.

  They felt that their lives had finally changed.

  They were right. Their luck had finally changed, but it wasn’t what they were expecting.

  They soon realized that their bad luck had changed for the worse.

  Dave and Maggie found themselves living in a world more terrifying than anything in any of Maggie’s books.

  Their biggest problem now was trying to stay alive.

  Chapter 1

  Dave Kelly sat on the porch of his mobile home. Sweat ran down the back of his neck. It was another hot humid day in Starke.

  The last time he looked at the thermometer that hung from the corner post, it was already up to ninety-five degrees.

  It was only eleven in the morning. He dreaded to think what the temperature would get up to as the day moved on.

  He was grateful the porch roof and the small palm tree that grew near the corner of the porch gave him a shady spot to sit and get out of the sun.

  Unfortunately, Dave had spent more time sitting on his porch than he really wanted to.

  He would rather be working than sitting here doing nothing.

  He would even be happy to be up and mowing the grass around his trailer, but the month long hot spell in Florida had turned his grass brown. Mowing brown grass that hadn’t grown an inch in the last four weeks would be a waste of time.

  It was still tempting, at least he would be doing something.

  Just sitting was driving him crazy.

  Dave looked around at the other trailers that lined the two gravel and dirt streets that made up Jay’s Mobile Home Park. There wasn’t anyone else moving around out in this heat. A few people were out sitting on their porches, but most of the other people were inside seeking shelter from the sun and the heat in the comfort of the air conditioning.

  Dave wished that’s where he was right now. Of course his first choice would be to be out working, even in this heat.

  His mobile home had air conditioning but he couldn’t afford to use it. He would turn it on for a few hours each night so he, Maggie and little Joey could get some sleep, but he wasn’t even sure if he would be able to afford to do that for much longer.

  During the day, the windows were left open to let the air circulate, but even with the windows open, it was hotter inside than what it was outside. As hard as that was to imagine.

  Three years ago, Dave had graduated from Ohio State University. His family had a large dairy farm in central Ohio. He had assumed when he graduated from high school that he would just stay on and work at the farm.

  It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but it was the way things went out in farm country.

  One day in the middle of his senior year, his dad called him into the living room after dinner to have a talk.

  Dave thought it was going to be the dreaded “Birds and Bees” talk.

  His dad laughed and said, “After all these years of living on the farm, I don’t think there is much I can add that you haven’t already figured out by watching the animals.”

  Dave was relieved. Of course he had picked up a few things around the farm, but it was at the farm down the road, the Johnson’s farm, where he had learned the most on that subject. Between the Johnson’s sixteen year old daughter Molly and the hay loft, Dave figured he could probably teach his dad a few things. Of course no matter what his dad had wanted to talk about today, Molly and the hay loft was not something he had planned to bring up. There were just some things that his dad didn’t need to know about.

  Dave was surprised when his dad asked him what he wanted to do after he got out of school.

  “I just assumed that I would be working here at the farm,” Dave replied. He had often thought about how it would be nice to do something other than work on the farm, but honestly he was afraid to bring up the subject. It wasn’t something that he thought would have been received well by his family. He also didn’t want to let his parents down by saying he didn’t want to stay on and help them after he got out of school.

  After Dave’s last two years in Starke, staying on at the farm now didn’t seem like such a bad idea back then after all. In fact it now sounded like a dream job.

  Dave’s dad was apparently smarter and more in touch with the real world than Dave had given him credit for.

  Dave’s dad explained that farming was not for everyone and honestly he thought Dave would be happier doing something else.

  He explained how he thought the farming business was only going to get more difficult in the years ahead. He said he was thinking about selling the farm in about ten years and moving south, maybe to Florida to live the easy life and be somewhere where there wasn’t any snow. However if Dave really wanted to take over the farm and make that his life, his dad would hang on to the farm and teach Dave all the ins and outs of running the business.

  Dave told his dad that he thought he would like to be an engineer or to get into construction.

  His dad thought that was a good field for Dave to get into and agreed to help him go to college. He also suggested that Dave consider taking a job somewhere down south or out west where the weather was better.

  After enduring forty-five winters and countless feet of snow and freezing temperatures, his dad didn’t want Dave to have to spend his life working under those conditions. He wanted something better for Dave.

  Dave was amazed at how helpful and understanding his dad was. He almost wanted to tell him about Molly and the many evenings he had spent in the hay loft, but decided maybe that would be taking the father and son bonding experience a little too far.

  So after high school graduation, Dave was off to Ohio State to get his degree in engineering.

  It was at Ohio State where Dave met Maggie. Little Joey made it known he was on his way by the start of Dave’s junior year. It was at this point Dave wished his dad would have had the “Talk” with him that day. Obviously what he had learned in the Johnson’s hay loft was only chapter one.

  He and Maggie were married. She dropped out of school and moved to the farm to take care of Joey while Dave finished school.

  Maggie was the best thing to ever happen to Dave, little Joey was right behind Maggie in that category, but Dave knew he could have handled things better.

  When Dave finally graduated from Ohio State, he started to apply for jobs. His goal was to get a job as a project manager with a large firm that was part of the many community development projects in Florida. His long term goal was to one day have his own company.

  Work in the Tampa, Sarasota and Ocala areas seemed to be exploding and taking his dad’s advice, he set his sights on a job in Florida.

  Dave soon learned that you didn’t graduate from college and walk right in to a project manager’s job. You had to start at the bottom and work your way up to a job like that.

  From all his years at the farm he should have realized that in the real world, unless you were extremely lucky, you only got what you worked for. Nothing would be handed to you, you had to earn it.

  Except for Maggie, Dave had never been lucky. Well there was the hay loft. At fourteen with sixteen year
old Molly, at the time he felt like he was the luckiest guy in the world. But looking back now, Dave was just lucky that he didn’t get into trouble.

  He was even luckier that Molly’s dad hadn’t found him and Molly in the barn.

  No, Dave knew he was going to have to work for what he wanted. He couldn’t expect to be lucky.

  Two months after graduating, Dave received a call from Emerson Development Company. Another company had referred Dave’s application to Emerson. Dave had never heard of that company and couldn’t find anything about the company on the internet.

  When he didn’t hear from any of the other companies he had sent applications, he decided to take a trip to Florida and see firsthand what Emerson had to offer.

  He and Maggie packed the car and took little Joey on a trip to Starke, Florida.

  They booked a room at the Starke Best Western for two nights to give them time to check out the area and give Dave time to find out what he could about Emerson.

  Starke wasn’t very impressive. It was a small town of about five thousand people spread out along Route 301.

  The town had a Wal-Mart on one end, a Hardy’s fast food restaurant on the other end and in between were two gas stations and every other fast food joint known to man.

  But at least it was a small town out in the country and not a large crowded city.

  How bad could it be?

  Dave found Emerson Development. It was a small company about two miles before reaching Starke on Route 301.

  It had a trailer as an office and a large fenced in area around the trailer that surrounded eight pieces of heavy equipment.

  It wasn’t the large shiny corporate symbol of American Industry that Dave was hoping to find.

  Dave walked in to talk with the manager.

  A guy by the name of Pete Emerson came out to talk to Dave. Pete looked to be the same age as Dave, again not what Dave was expecting. He was expecting a more mature and experienced business man.

  Pete informed Dave that Emerson Development had just landed a contract for a big project over at the Florida State Correctional Facility outside of town.

  The facility was adding a new wing and Emerson was going to do the work.

  However in order to qualify to do the project, Emerson was required to have a certified engineer on their crew.

  Emerson had a number of experienced workers, but they didn’t have a certified engineer.

  They only had a week to bring a certified engineer on board or they would lose the job.

  Pete said he would make Dave the assistant project manager and teach him how to operate all of the heavy equipment.

  He would gain experience in two areas to pad his resume, make good money and get the start in the business he was hoping to find.

  Pete also said that most guys that came into the area to work rented a place until they got familiar with the area before they bought a house.

  Pete said he had a friend that managed Jay’s Mobile Home Park and he knew they had a vacancy that would be perfect for Dave and his family.

  Dave told Pete he would discuss the offer with his wife and return later that day to give him his decision.

  Maggie and Dave discussed the offer.

  They both agreed that Starke didn’t seem like the kind of place they would want to live and bring up little Joey.

  But again they both agreed that Dave had to start somewhere.

  Being Dave was the only certified engineer that Emerson would have, it sounded like he would have good job security.

  The project with the State of Florida was scheduled to last for two years, again more job security.

  The money sounded good and it would look good on Dave’s resume to enable him to take the next step up to a larger company.

  Maggie encouraged Dave to take this first step.

  “How bad could it be?” Maggie smiled, “besides we can always go back to the farm if this doesn’t work out.”

  So Dave accepted the position, optimistic that if nothing else, it would only lead to bigger and better things.

  Long story short, six months later Emerson was fired from the project for cutting corners.

  Emerson Development now consisted of a rusty old trailer surrounded by an empty fenced in equipment yard with for sale signs hanging on the fence.

  Offers could be made by calling the county bankruptcy court office in Ocala.

  Dave now found himself unemployed and living in an old trailer in Starke, a town where thirty percent of the people lived below the national poverty level.

  The Stark area was also the home of A National Guard base, The Florida State Correctional Facility, The Union Correctional Facility and The New River Correctional Institution.

  Even with three prisons, Dave felt the area could use at least one more. If you didn’t lock up all your stuff at night, it would manage to disappear by the next morning.

  It was also uncomfortable to be out and about around town after dark, not that there was anywhere to go in Starke after dark.

  Dave made sure they were home and inside by night fall.

  The last two and a half years had been hard. Dave bounced around from one dead end job to another.

  To help out, Maggie had taken a part time job at the Starke Wal-Mart.

  She made enough money to pay the rent and most of the utilities, but not much more.

  Of course they could go back to the farm. Dave’s dad told him that he would give Dave five years before he sold the farm, to decide whether he wanted to come back and run the farm or wanted to pursue a career with his engineering degree.

  Dave had spent three days a week trying to find a job. The other days he baby sat Joey so Maggie could work at Wal-Mart. The first year he had only looked for a job where he could use his degree. The last year he was willing to accept anything that would pay the bills. However, no matter what he looked for, the results were the same.

  The recession and the slow housing market had brought just about everything to a standstill in Florida.

  As hard as Dave was trying to stick it out, in another six months he would have to swallow his pride and go back to the farm.

  That is if they could hold out for another six months.

  Dave looked over at Maggie as she sat on the glider, rocking back and forth as she read another one of her zombie books. She had just started The Last Days, her second zombie book this week.

  Maggie had become hooked on zombie books since they moved to Florida and spent all her free time reading.

  Dave found himself learning more about zombies than he cared to know.

  Every day Dave learned about another government conspiracy, terrorist attack, mad scientist, or accident that caused that day’s zombie apocalypse.

  Less amusing were the stories of the massive hordes of the dead that over ran the cities and ate the living.

  Maybe it wasn’t Maggie’s stories that made him feel so uncomfortable. Maybe it was just hearing these stories in the town of Starke. Dave felt that if a zombie apocalypse was to happen, however unlikely this imaginary event could ever occur, he was sure it would happen here in this God forsaken little town in Florida.

  In many ways, except for actual zombies, he felt they were already living some kind of apocalyptic nightmare here in Starke.

  Dave smiled as he looked over at Maggie. Her long brown hair was clinging to the side of her face, wet from perspiration.

  She had never complained once the entire time they had been living in Starke.

  Not only would most other women have complained, they would have probably left and gone back home to their parents a year ago.

  Joey hadn’t complained either, but that was only because he didn’t know any better.

  Besides, Joey loved the hot weather and no one gave him a second thought when he ran around dressed only in a pair of shorts and no shoes.

  Dave wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He didn’t mind hot weather, but this was ridicules.

  “Maybe six more months of thi
s is too long?” Dave thought, “I can’t put Maggie through anymore of this. She deserves a lot better than this.”

  Maggie must have seen him staring at her and looked up from her book and smiled.

  “What are you staring at?” she smiled. “Don’t get any ideas over there. It’s too hot.”

  Dave laughed, “I was just thinking about the farm.”

  “You’re not thinking about giving up all of this, are you?” she giggled.

  “You’re amazing,” Dave laughed, “Sometimes I actually believe you like living here.”

  “I lived my entire life before I met you, in the mountains of Kentucky,” Maggie smiled, “I always dreamed about living in Florida, especially during the winter.”

  “Well you are now living in Florida,” Dave smiled, then the smile faded, “if you can call this living.”

  “I’ve lived through worse,” Maggie replied, “Besides, remember I told you as long as we were together, I’d be happy to live in a tent if we had to.”

  “But I wanted to give you more than this,” Dave frowned.

  “It will get better,” Maggie smiled. “Besides, I haven’t been cold now for three years. I say that counts for something.”

  “Yea, that is something,” Dave laughed again, “but life would be so much easier back on the farm.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Maggie replied, “it could always be worse. Starke could be crawling with zombies wanting to eat our brains.”

  Dave rested his head back against the top of his chair and started to laugh, “Maybe you reading all those creepy books aren’t so bad after all. It had crossed my mind a few times that maybe I should hide them before you started to have nightmares.”

  “That’s good to know,” Maggie smiled looking at Dave, “if one of my books comes up missing now I know who is going to pay the price.”