The keys for the GTO hung from a hook on the wall in the home’s mud room. Jim found an 18-inch billhook saw in the garage and he packed it along with the Mossberg for his trip into town. He turned the key and the Pontiac V8 roared to life with a satisfying rumble coming from the dual exhaust. If you’re going to kill zombies in a new town, then you might as well do it in style.
With the top down, the wind blew through Jim’s hair, bringing back memories of driving his Dad’s GTO in Iowa. Jim had restored and hot rodded it to honor his father’s memory, but it was a hardtop with a 4-speed manual transmission. This car flew and Jim wondered if the previous owner replaced the 400 with a later model 455 cubic inch engine. He imagined driving through the Iowa farmland in better times rather than heading into an unknown town in Tennessee to slaughter flesh eating monsters.
Jim sped down the town’s main street and screeched to a stop next to a gang of five zombies. He leapt from the car and put the billhook saw into action. Five compact swings and five corpses decorated the street. The GTO’s engine snarled its eagerness for further action, and Jim spun the tires as he closed on the next group. A repeat of the results for the first group, except there were only four monsters loitering here. For the next hour and a half, Jim screamed through the town with the GTO littering the ground with zombie bodies. He’d have to find some heavy equipment later to clean up the rotting corpses before they stank. The town’s DOT was currently on a permanent vacation and wouldn’t be handling clean up.
After two days of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Jim checked out the local grocery store to find some decent food. The main electricity feed had been out at the house Jim commandeered, so it surprised him when the store’s door slid open in front of him. He carried the Mossberg in front of him in a ready position and found every other light illuminated inside the store. A back up power source kept things operational here, so Jim decided to take advantage of this while he could. Cold beer and steak went into his cart for the quick trip home. He packed the remaining meat into the freezers, hoping to preserve it for as long as possible. Jim would eat like a king, at least for today.
His euphoria turned to caution when he found three teenagers standing outside the store near the GTO. Two males and one female. They carried a couple of baseball bats and a machete with them.
“Hi there. Do you like the car?” All three flinched when Jim spoke.
“It’s a 67 Goat. What’s not to like.” One of the two boys spoke with a smile on his face.
“Cool. You’re a car guy. Are the three of you from around here?” Three sets of eyes darted about, but no one responded to his question.
“That’s alright. You don’t have to say. Look, there’s plenty of food inside the store. I’m going to cook up some steaks. I could grab a few more and cook them for the three of you too.”
“No thanks. We’re doing fine on our own.” The same boy spoke a second time. He must be the leader of the group.
“I can see you’re doing ok. There’s strength in numbers, though. We could work together.”
“We could just take your stuff, old man. We’ll let you go this time, but don’t let us see you around again anymore.” The girl hugged herself with her arms while the other boy looked everywhere except at Jim.
“Please don’t be stupid. I don’t want to hurt any of you. As a matter of fact, I’d like to help you. But please don’t push me to defend myself. It would end badly for the three of you.”
All three looked at each other and then turned and ran away from Jim. “Shit!” He said to himself. Then he yelled after the kids.
“When you’re ready, I’ll be glad to help you.”
Jim stood staring in the direction they had run off in, but he now stood all alone in the street. He loaded the groceries into the car and used the power of the big V8 to spin the car around in the middle of the street. The move would have gotten him a ticket before the end of civilization, but no one noticed now. With the wind in his hair and the roar of the engine, Jim raced back toward his home to make a satisfying lunch and ponder his next move. He now knew for sure there were other survivors, and he wanted to find them and help.
###
There’s nothing like fresh grilled steak, and Jim relished every bite. He found an expensive propane grill set up behind the house and Jim put it to work on his prized meal. The steak and the cold beer tasted like heaven on this hot and humid summer day. If zombies didn’t roam the Earth, it would be a wonderful vacation for Jim.
So far, the day had been successful. Fewer zombies roamed free and Jim knew of one group of survivors out there. The three teenagers acted tough but showed their fear when he confronted them. Jim wondered if they were alone or if they had a larger group somewhere nearby. He’d keep his eyes open because a scared enemy could make stupid decisions. Hurting a group of scared teenagers who were trying to survive was the last thing he wanted to do.
A more pressing need was to find a piece of heavy equipment. There were a bunch of zombie corpses rotting in the streets, and the smell in town would only grow worse from their further decay. Disease spread via dead bodies, so he needed to prevent that issue too. Where do you find a backhoe? The town’s garage might have one, but where was it located? Random driving around the town and hoping for the best would be a poor plan, so Jim needed something better.
After cleaning up the mess from his lunch, Jim searched the house for any clues. In a drawer within a hall table, he found a local phone book and a paper map of the town. The blue pages in the thin phone book displayed the numbers and addresses for the local town government facilities. It turned out Jim now lived in Wheresville Valley, Tennessee. His town was unknown no more.
He paged through the phone book and found the address of the town’s public work’s building. The map placed it on the outskirts of town, on the opposite end of Jim’s place.
“Shit, it would have to be across town.” Out of habit, Jim expressed his frustration out load even though no one could hear him speak.
It was early afternoon, so there were several hours of daylight left. No time like the present to head out. Which vehicle should he take? After an internal debate, he took the Honda across town. If he found a backhoe, he’d have to leave the vehicle behind, and both the GTO and pickup truck were too valuable to him.
The Honda CRV had a full tank of gas, so the trip through town wouldn’t tax the small SUV. His drive didn’t take long, and he came across no new zombies or other survivors. Jim’s extermination trip during the morning rid the town of the walking dead, at least temporarily. It’s possible to claim back the world one town at a time.
Wheresville Valley, Tennessee Public Works, read the sign in front of the small garage building. No one would confuse this town with a big city, and this place reflected that fact. The building’s front contained four rolling garage doors and a single man sized door with the words “Office” written over top of it. Jim planned on entering through the office door and checking out the equipment housed inside. If the garage doors had been glass, he could have looked inside, but all three doors were solid. There were no signs of any backup power source, so it would be dark inside of the building.
A simple lockset with a deadbolt locked the office door. Jim didn’t bother looking for a hidden key but drove his size 15 foot through the door. Wood splintered, and the door flew open and the scent of death washed over Jim. He hefted the billhook saw and entered the building. A body laid on the floor behind the front desk. Both zombie and rodent teeth marks covered the remains. “Shit!”
Big Jim walked around the back of the desk, and the corpse snapped at him. The remnant of the body still longed for living human flesh, even though its arms and legs were chewed off. He flinched at the sight before bringing his boot down and flattening the skull, ending this freak of nature.
A small office at the back of the entry area was empty of any other monsters or bodies. The second door opened into the garage area and Jim knew he’d find more monsters there.
Someone had chewed on their office coworker, and the outside door had been both closed and locked.
He peered through the door’s window and found the garage area shrouded in a murky light. Small windows ringed the top of the garage structure, but no one cleaned them during the last decade. The garage held three dump trucks, a backhoe, a loader, and a street sweeper. Why didn’t he bring a flashlight with him?
Jim’s simple plan had him entering the garage and then opening the closest garage door. Light from outside would illuminate the space, and he could then see all threats hidden in the shadows. Not much of a plan, but this wasn’t exactly Mission Impossible.
Deferred maintenance extended to the passage door, and the hinges screeched forth Jim’s intensions. Moans came from the other side of the garage telling him he wasn’t alone, but he had expected nothing less. He let the door close and eased down the walkway next to the first dump truck. Jim’s eyes bounced both directions, waiting for the oncoming threat to appear. It didn’t take long. Zombie number one bum rushed him from the back of the truck and a quick swipe of the billhook dropped his would-be attacker. The second came from behind while Jim dealt with the first. It lunged face first at his back, causing Jim to take a step forward, crashing into the truck. His luck held because the zombie never got his teeth on Jim’s skin, but it had knocked the saw from his hand. With an enormous fist, Big Jim punched the monster in the chest, knocking it back. A living man would gasp for breath, but the dead no longer breathed. Without taking a break, it lunged again at Jim. He brought up the Mossberg and fired, hitting the zombie in the chest. The zombie staggered for a second, which allowed Jim to pump a second shell into the receiver. Jim fired a second time and melted its face with the buckshot.
Two threats neutralized in about ten seconds. Big Jim cleared the rest of the garage area and found no other dead men walking. The town’s population of the living may not be increasing, but the population of the dead had decreased thanks to Jim.
Big Jim found the keys to all the equipment in the office area. The backhoe sat on a trailer hooked to the dump truck parked in the middle bay. It was a similar model to the backhoe his brother Judd had on the farm, so Jim would have no problem operating it. He started by burying the three bodies at the public works building and then headed into town to dispose of the rest of his kills. By time he finished body disposal duty, the sun had dropped in the sky.
After another quick stop at the grocery store, Jim returned home for the evening. He smiled, looking back at the highlights of the day. Wheresville Valley, Tennessee, had a much smaller population of the dead. Jim wouldn’t be able to eliminate them all himself unless he walled the place in. Other survivors were living in town too, so Jim wasn’t alone. Now he had to build trust with the group so he could help them.
CHAPTER NINE
Day Six
BIG JIM AWOKE with the rising sun feeling well rested and ready to face another day in his adopted town of Wheresville Valley, Tennessee. The Weather Network stopped broadcasting almost a week ago, so Jim had to read the morning sky to determine the day’s forecast. A mostly clear baby blue sky had the first indications of dark clouds forming. Wonder what Al Ricker would say about the day?
There were a few random zombies roaming the town, and Jim estimated the number to be around ten. It had been an improvement from the previous day, so Jim’s efforts of cleaning up the town had paid off. Now he needed to figure out how to make the town secure to keep the monsters out. He had some ideas on how, so Jim needed to visit the town’s garage again today.
Breakfast this morning included bacon and eggs pilfered from the grocery store. A tremendous improvement after eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the last few mornings. The food would start to spoil soon and then would run out, so Jim had to work to locate additional food sources. Good thing he grew up on a corn farm and understood how to grow his own food. Jim had to secure the area before he could start farming because an unprotected field would be a target for both unfriendly humans and the wandering dead.
Before heading out to start the day’s work, Jim took one last look at the town from the balcony off his bedroom. Besides, the roaming zombies from earlier, there was nothing new to see. Wonder what happened to those three teenagers? When they ran off, it disappointed Big Jim because he knew strength came in numbers and those three lacked the skills needed for long-term survival.
He had left the backhoe parked in town last night and drove the dump truck back to the house. Jim would love to take the GTO out for a joy ride again, but he stuck with the big truck instead. As he drove down the hill, Jim ran down a group of three zombies who staggered down the road. The dump truck made quick work as it squashed the monsters into pulp. Seeing the street pizza in the truck’s mirror caused Jim to laugh out loud. It was messy but quick work, eliminating the roaming packs of zombies with his new toy. He’d clean up the mess later in the afternoon after he did some work on upgrading the town’s security.
When Jim visited the Wheresville Valley, Tennessee Public Works building the day before, he noticed a school bus depot next door. He parked the dump truck out front and let himself into the small office building. In reality, calling it a shack would be more accurate, but Jim knew he would find the bus keys inside. The same key, his large booted foot, he used on the public works building opened this door too. Convenient to have all the doors in town keyed alike. This thought made Big Jim laugh again.
Inside the shack, he found a small counter that ran along the front of the space with one closed door beyond the office area. An empty bathroom sat behind the closed door. Behind the counter, Jim found a locked metal cabinet with a sign reading “Keys” on it and a large white board with bus numbers, an In or Out magnet, and a driver name field. The numbers 1 to 25 identified each of the buses parked in the lot. It was a low-tech but efficient system to track the buses.
A quick blow to the cabinet’s door revealed 25 sets of keys. Big Jim grabbed a set from the enclosure and headed outside to find the bus they belonged to. Their tracking system may have used low technology means, but they had been well organized. The key fob marked #1 fit the bus parked in the spot labelled #1, and it was the first bus in line.
“Nice!”
Last night, Jim had looked at the paper map and found five major roads that led into town. They were Main Street, Park Avenue, Oakwood Road, Chestnut Avenue, and Greenway Road. His plan was to use the school buses to form a blockade on each road before they reached the downtown area. These roadblocks would be moveable but would keep vehicle traffic out of the town. At least it would prevent people from entering the town easily. Jim would use the heavy equipment from garage to dig trenches on the sides of each road to prevent anyone from driving around the buses. He’d have to work out a way to limit the incursion of the dead, but that would be a bigger project for a different day.
Big Jim worked from the farthest road from the bus depot lot to the closest. His first stop would be Greenway Road. Greenway had two lanes in each direction, lined with commercial buildings on both sides of the road. He located a choke point where the trees encroached on the verge on both sides of the road. Bus number one blocked the northbound lanes which led into the town. Jim would need three more buses to finish the makeshift blockade.
Dark clouds continued to form throughout the morning, but they had little effect on the increasing heat and humidity. Jim was thankful he thought ahead to bring the electric bike along with him today. With the bike, he made good time returning to the bus depot and depositing more school buses on Greenway Road. Four buses made an effective wall blocking all four lanes, the median and the road’s shoulders to the tree line.
The morning flew by, but Jim repeated his efforts on both Oakwood Road, and Chestnut Avenue. This left only two remaining approach roads, and Jim hoped to finish blocking them both before the end of the day. He drove the dump truck to the grocery store to pick up something for lunch. Along the way, he crushed a half dozen zombies under the tires of the
heavy vehicle. Where were they coming from now?
While enjoying his lunch back at the house, the skies opened up and the pouring rain started. Thunder and lightning accompanied the summer deluge. The heavy rain cleansed the streets of the left-over zombie guts, so Jim took the rest of the day off. He’d blockade the last two streets tomorrow after the rain stopped. No need to get soaking wet this afternoon since he had seen no other threats to his safety.
###
At the midpoint of the afternoon, Jim heard the roar of a diesel engine racing through the downtown area. It was a full-size pickup truck with four full sized doors on the cab and dual wheels on the back. While he watched their progress, they stopped in front of the town’s only downtown hotel. The hotel stood ten stories tall and had a famous brand name on the sign out front of the building.
Five men stepped from the truck and Jim could tell they were trouble as soon as he saw them climb down onto the pavement. They spoke loud enough for him to hear their voices, but he couldn’t decipher their words over the distance separating them. Three zombies wandered the streets and one of the crew pulled a pistol from his waistband and gunned them down. This crew had no concern about announcing their arrival to everyone within earshot.
While Jim watched, the five men entered the lobby of the hotel. They took no precautions before entering the structure. This group was both brazen and foolish, showing a total lack of discipline and training. With the right equipment, they would be no match for Big Jim. Problem was, Jim hadn’t been concerned with arming himself, so he had only the billhook saw and the Mossberg Tactical Shotgun. The billhook saw worked well for zombies and the shotgun was an effective short-range weapon, but neither would do when confronting a larger armed force. “Shit!”
Operation Z | Novella | Everyone Dies Page 5