The Good, The Bad, And The Undead : A zombie Apocalypse (The Wild Wild Midwest Book 1)

by Gill, Bonnie

  Of course, they did.

  Mrs. Garcia and Ben's eyes have glazed over, and they look scared out of their minds. This is not going how I had hoped. Helga is swatting at something invisible in front of her face.

  I haven't felt this vulnerable in years. Not since the whole Seth escapade.

  "We can always bug out to Wisconsin," Dean says, with a hopeful tone in his voice.

  "The roads may have armed blockades. I don't want to be forced into a refugee camp," I say.

  "We'll run into those crazies if we stay in the area," Star says.

  "Let's go over there and show them no one messes with us," Vinny says.

  "They out man and outgun us. Let’s not take a chance. Besides, we don't know for sure that they’re malicious. We pack up and leave for Joey's and Vinny's in the morning. Daria and Vinny have the first watch. Star, you and Joey second. Raven and I will have third," Dean says.

  Star shoots me a look that could melt iron.

  I shrug. I have nothing to do with the assignments. She's going to have to suck it up, and be a team player.

  "What about me?" Ben asks.

  "Do you know how to shoot a gun?" Dean asks the young man.

  He presses his lips together and shakes his head.

  "You'll need to learn. Don't worry. We'll teach you, but not right now." Dean takes a step forward. "Everyone else will pack. We need to go through some of our neighbor's houses to gather weapons, ammo, nonperishable food, bottled water, and prescriptions. Is anyone on any meds?" I ask, remembering Betty’s heart condition situation from earlier.

  "I'm on high blood pressure medicine," Mrs. Garcia says.

  "Okay. We'll grab all prescriptions and medication, including aspirin and first aid products. If it looks useful, bring it back. The homes with the circle on it are clear. Don't go into the ones with an X, they have casualties inside. Raven and I are both taking our pickup trucks and the SUV parked next to it. Start loading them up, people. Does anyone have any questions?" Dean waits for about thirty seconds.

  No one says anything.

  Helga raises her hand.

  Dean nods to her to ask her question.

  She stands up. "I can hex them." She points a finger upward like she's giving us the answers to the universe. "I'll put the whammy on them."

  "You do that, and don't forget your flying monkeys," Deans says. He turns to me and gives me the double eyebrow raise.

  Helga nods like she has a purpose now. She sits back down.

  "What about warning the people at Summer Hill?" I ask.

  "We can warn them tomorrow on our way out. Okay, let's head to our assignments." Dean claps his hands.

  Star breaks away from the group first, and she rushes into her bedroom.

  Joey purses his lips and has determination written all over his face as he follows her.

  Daria and Vinny climb the ladder to the roof. Each is armed with an MK-47, a pistol, and a bat.

  Mrs. Garcia, Ben, and I head over to the first neighbor's home. An elderly man named Jake, and his wife, Evelyn, live here.

  "They left for the hospital a few days ago," says Mrs. Garcia. She knows everyone and everything going on in the neighborhood. If someone moves in, she's the first one to knock on their door with a basket full of muffins. Actually, she's the only one who brings muffins or anything to the new arrivals. She's made it her personal mission to greet new neighbors. The next thing they know, they're spilling their secrets to her. "They were both sick with high fevers. I told them I'd water their plants while they're gone. Do you think they'll come back?"

  I shake my head sadly. At this point, I don't think anyone who returns will have a heartbeat or even be capable of forming sentences.

  We step inside their home. "I'll look in the master bath and bedroom. Ben, you check the other bedroom, and Mrs. Garcia, please check the kitchen," I say.

  We all fan out to our different rooms. I pull out empty pillowcases from the linen closet to fill with our loot. Their mobile home isn’t much different from the rest of ours. They tore out a wall between two bedrooms to make a larger room. They have gold shag carpet and a king-size bed in there.

  My first stop is the medicine cabinet. There are several prescription bottles. I toss them into the sack. Bottles of old man cologne, toothbrushes, and condoms that look like they’re a hundred years old are stuffed inside the vanity drawers. I leave them. I grab the bandages and antibacterial ointment, some ibuprofen, and the other pain relievers. Next, I head toward the bedroom closet and check the upper shelf. Bingo.

  I find an old Winchester twelve-gauge shotgun and a box of rounds. I check between the mattresses and find an issue of Playboy magazine from nineteen-seventy-two. I check the nightstand and find another prescription. This one is for erectile dysfunction. I put it in my pocket as I leave the room.

  I step into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Garcia is pulling all the nonperishable foods out of the cabinets. There are two piles. One is a lot larger than the other.

  "What are the piles for?" I tap on the cans gathered on the counter next to me.

  "Oh, I'm checking expiration dates. Some of these expired three years ago." She points to the larger pile.

  Ben comes into the room. "I only found a wool blanket and some new toothbrushes."

  We pack up our finds and head back to my home. We wave at Daria and Vinny on the roof. Inside Dean, Helga, Star, and Joey are making extra bug-out bags.

  "Hey Dean, think fast." I toss him the prescription bottle filled with little blue pills. “Just in case you get lucky."

  He catches it in one hand and then reads the bottle. "Stop messing around." He throws it back at me a bit harder than I threw it at him.

  "I thought it was funny."

  Everyone is looking at us with a confused look.

  "Should we start packing the trucks?" I ask.

  "Yes. Put the weapons and ammo in the duffle bags, and keep them in the cabs so they're easy to grab," Dean says.

  "Ay-ay captain." I salute him.

  "Raven, tone down the sarcasm, and get to work. We need to be ready to go." Dean is getting grouchy. He just needs some sleep. I figure he's only slept three, maybe four, hours since this whole escapade started.

  "I'm going to check out some of the other homes. We should leave some food in case people do come back." I motion Mrs. Garcia and Ben to come with me.

  We go inside Todd's home. The cesspool of fermenting zombies outside is saturating the area. The odor is so bad it coats your throat and makes your eyes water. We secure bandanas around our faces.

  I head into Todd's bathroom and open the medicine cabinet. You never really know someone until you've snooped in their bathroom. Inside the door of the cabinet is a picture of the Russian leader on a horse, with no shirt on. I knew Todd was strange, but really? It just gets weirder from there. There's a shrunken head staring back at me. It's about the size of a baseball. The long stringy hair is coiled up underneath it. I swear it has real teeth. I've heard a lot of the shrunken heads are just mummified monkey heads. This thing looks real. Also, why the heck is it in his medicine cabinet? Next to it is a prescription bottle loaded with clipped toenails. I immediately regret my decision to look inside. As I cap it and toss it into the garbage can, a ruler falls out. I don't even pick it up. There's no telling what he has been measuring.

  He must have been one of those kids who ate paste in school. I always knew it had to have side effects. The adhesive probably gunked up his brain. Or maybe his mother dropped him on his head one too many times.

  My search doesn’t produce anything useful. Not that I plan to take anything from this house of madness.

  "Are you guys finding anything?" I walk into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Garcia turns with a large jar in her hands. She holds it out to me. A tiny dead kitten is floating in a yellow liquid. "What kind of person has this in their kitchen? Or anywhere in their home?"

  "You don't want to know what I found in the bathroom."


  Ben runs into the room, fills his hands with dish soap, and scrubs them under hot water like he's touched a petri dish full of an infectious disease. He shakes his head as he exfoliates the top layer of his skin.

  We don't ask what he found. Judging by the greenish tint of his skin and how much his hands are shaking under the water, we don't want to know.

  I wash my hands when he finishes. "Let's just leave everything here and go on to the next house."

  We hit the mother lode in Mr. and Mrs. Johnson's home. We knew Mrs. Johnson was a couponer, but we never knew she hoarded her bounty. One whole bedroom is loaded with paper products, toiletries, and food. We pack ten of each shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and still leave plenty behind. Before we raided her stash, she had one whole wall filled with racks of cereal, oatmeal, canned food, and other nonperishables.

  We drop everything off at my home and make two more trips. "We only look for weapons and ammo now."

  Everyone agrees. We can open up a small grocery store with everything we’ve found.

  When we finish, we find a total of two rifles, some boxes of ammo, one paintball gun with paintballs, two large hunting knives, some baseball bats, and a hatchet. The truck beds are full of supplies.

  "We have company," Vinny calls down from his post.

  "Five gabbies heading this way." Daria points toward the entrance.

  Dean picks up a bat. Star's armed with another.

  I point at Joey and his gun. "That's going to make too much noise."

  He pulls a silencer out of his pocket and installs it without looking. "Happy?"

  I give him the thumbs up.

  "There’s a bunch more are coming from the other direction. I’ll stay up here and keep watch." Daria looks over the edge at us. “You got this.”

  Vinny shimmies down the ladder at lightning speed. He has his bat in the ready position. He blows me a kiss.

  "In your dreams, Lover Boy," I say under my breath as I ready my wrench. My muscles tighten in anticipation. It'll only take one bite. One bite and you die. Or even worse, you become one of them. Do they feel anything? I shudder at the thought of scientists doing experiments on them. For some reason, I feel like I know it'll come to that eventually. In the meantime, I need to concentrate on bashing in their heads.

  The first gabbie shambles around the corner. He's wearing black flannel pajamas with yellow happy faces on them. He spots us and starts to gallop. Yes, gallop, in our direction. His white socks soaked with brown stuff make a slapping noise on the pavement.

  Two female zombies follow him. One is dressed in a torn and bloody suit with one high heel, and the other is in sweats that look like they were well worn before this whole apocalypse started.

  Joey shoots the happy PJ man in the head. The gabbie falls back and smacks the ground.

  I run to the female executive and swing my wrench at her face. Meanwhile, I feel a sharp tug on my braid.

  I turn to see Vinny's bat just barely miss my head and smash into Sweatpants Sally's jaw. She goes down, and I have to peel her fingers from my braid.

  "Careful where you swing," I warn.

  "No, ‘Thank you, Vinny, for saving my life’? Geez, women these days." He turns to chase one of the other gabbies.

  "We have a problem," Daria shouts over the edge of my trailer. "There's about fifty more headed this way." She starts climbing down the ladder.

  That's too many. I look at Dean. "Are we packed and ready?"

  "Does a bee like honey?" he responds. "Keys and hand-held radios are in each of the vehicles. We just have to get in."

  As if on cue, everyone inside bolts out the door. Mrs. Garcia and Ben hop into the back of the SUV. Vinny jumps into the driver's seat. Daria is down from the roof and gets in the passenger side.

  Helga flits around by my truck, flapping her arms.

  "Get in the backseat." I make the hurry up motion.

  She jumps inside.

  Star hops into the passenger seat and latches her seatbelt.

  Dean is in his vehicle.

  Joey pulls out first in his Mustang.

  I'm next, then Vinny in the middle, and Dean brings up the rear.

  The walking dead fill the road. They shamble around as if they're gathering for the free food samples in a warehouse big-box store. They do their carp impressions, opening and closing their bloodied mouths.

  Joey drives through some of our neighbor's yards like he's driving a four-wheeler instead of a muscle car. The stupid idiot is going to tear up the undercarriage of his Mustang. He runs through a patch of mud, and his rear tires spin.

  I fall in behind him and tap his bumper to give him a nudge.

  He breaks free and gives me a middle finger salute.

  "Where'd you pick up this guy?' I ask Star. "He's an idiot when it comes to driving."

  "Just watch. He knows what he's doing." She crosses her arms in front of her. There's a small smile sneaking onto her lips. She still likes him, and it bugs the crap out of her.

  The Mustang crosses into the next yard between two large gabbies. They're both males, and their big, jiggly bellies stick out from under their t-shirts. If Joey hits either one of them, he can kiss his pretty car goodbye.

  We follow.

  The gabbies shift their path to intercept us. One is wearing a t-shirt that says "I pooped today" on it. From the looks of the brown stains on his khaki pants, he sure did.

  "Get back on the road," I shout at Joey, swerve to miss a gabbie, and I hit a bush. He can't hear me, but it makes me feel better.

  "This reminds me of when mom was teaching you how to drive. Remember the garbage cans? Mom's face turned bright red." Star laughed.

  "It blew into the road right in front of me. Anyway, do something productive, like shoot the gabbies." I dodge a tricycle.

  Joey finally gets back onto the blacktop.

  I let out a deep breath, happy we won’t have to run over any more bushes.

  Dean and Vinny stay on the road and are pushing their way through the crowd. The gabbies are pounding on their windows and moaning.

  Joey rounds the corner and exits the mobile home park.

  I cut off a group of gabbies and file in behind him. There must be over a hundred of the undead in our neighborhood. One bounces off my front fender and goes airborne. I cringe at the sound of the crunch. My poor truck. I'm glad I have a brush guard on the front, but I doubt it'll escape unscathed.

  I check my rearview mirror. Helga is clinging to the back of Star's seat, her fingernails digging into the leather. She's singing the ‘mamma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird’ song in a haunting tone. Talk about creepy. We are seriously going to have to keep an eye on her.

  A gabbie clings onto the bed of the truck. His head keeps popping up over the tailgate like a jack-in-the-box.

  Star swivels, and her eyes go wide as paper plates. "I'll get it." She unlatches her seatbelt and crawls into the back seat by Helga. Star pulls out her rifle and opens the back sliding glass.

  A loud bang sounds. My ears are ringing, and I can't hear a thing. She must have hit her target because the zombie is no longer hanging onto the back of the truck.

  Helga is covering her ears, and her mouth gapes open.

  "Sorry about that," Star shouts.

  Joey is driving in the center of the street. Gabbies are lined up on each side. More are on the sidewalks, some are attacking each other, and others have their full attention on us.

  Vinny and Dean are still following.

  We zig-zag through town until we hit Main street. As we get closer to the police station, I notice a figure hanging in the trees.

  "That's Sheriff Brophy. We can't leave him like that," Star says.

  Joey slows. There's about thirty of the undead circling around the sheriff. He's hanging upside down, and his head is just barely out of reach of some of the tall zombies. If a basketball player gabbie sees him, he's doomed. He reminds me of a wiggling caterpillar building a cocoon. Every time a zombie's finge
rtips nears his head, he twists the other way.

  Star pulls out the radio. "We need to get the sheriff down."

  Joey pulls over, and immediately three zombies flock to his car.

  Vinny and Dean are behind us. I pull up closer and bulldoze two gabbies. The stupid zombies just stand there, waiting for us to run them over. Their attention is still riveted on the sheriff. They have their hands up, swaying back and forth in a concert wave. Several have their long, purple and black tongues darting out as if they're frogs trying to snatch bugs out of midair. I had no idea people's tongues could be so long. It gives me the willies just like toes do. I have a severe reaction to toes. There are very few pretty toes and toenails. Just thinking about it makes my big toes hurt. Thank goodness I haven't zeroed in on the gabbies feet yet. Now I'm going to have to look, and it'll give me nightmares.

  A big gabbie pushes a bald one, and the bald one falls. Then it's a pig pile on the downed zombie. They jump onto it, biting and pulling his grayish skin with their teeth. Black goo oozes from the gashes.

  Star turns from the carnage and looks at me. "Oh, that's really gross. What's the plan to save the sheriff?"

  "Who said I have a plan? I'm just winging it." I lick my dry lips. Where's a Chapstick when you need one?

  The sheriff wiggles upside down in the air. "Help," he says in low voice.

  I look closer and notice he's not tethered by a rope, but by a large chain. This makes things significantly more difficult.

  I call Dean on the radio. "Hey, is the chainsaw in the bed of my truck or yours?"

  Mrs. Garcia answers, "It's in yours. The box against the cab labeled power tools. There should be gas in it." She should know, she's the one who packed everything.

  "Okay. Everyone cover me." I drop the radio and unhook my seat belt. I swing my truck around and back up until the bed is under the sheriff.

  The gabbies scramble for the truck, trying to scale the sides. Star shoots at a couple.

  There's crackling on the radio. Joey's voice comes on. "I don't know if that's a good idea. Every zombie is going to try to climb into your truck bed."

  I ignore him and put the vehicle in park.