Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel

by Mike Fosen

  I heard Mattie yelling something about the master bedroom when gunfire erupted from outside. Minutes later Stephen was yelling into my new pimp ride.

  “Mike, let’s move out already! We got all the trucks hooked up we can take this round,” he said as he climbed the steps into the bus. “Have you seen Mattie? I want everyone accounted for before we leave. We don’t want to leave anyone behind. The zombies have even found us out here!”

  “I’m here!” Mattie yelled from the back.

  “Okay, Mike, she is your responsibility for the trip back,” Stephen joked.

  Flopping down into the driver’s seat of the huge luxury bus, I groaned as I rested my head on the big steering wheel. Glancing into the mirror, I saw Mattie had laid down onto the bed, causing me quite the distraction.

  Try not to crash, Mike.

  I swear that woman’s hotness will be the death of me.

  I put the huge bus into gear and followed the truck in front of me out of the lot. Stopping just long enough to secure the gate, I gave the RV some extra gas to catch back up to the rest of the convoy.

  Logan and Kleaner were sitting on a large pile of boxes stacked out in front on the sidewalk as we pulled back up to their apartment building. Our long column coiled together for protection as we stopped, and I had plenty of time to take in the view. The beautiful setting sun contrasted with the decay that could already be seen all around, and the smoke from several fires could be seen burning in the distance. Looking towards the brick building, I saw that both Logan and Kleaner were sucking water out of Camelbacks and their shiny new BDUs were drenched in sweat, as if this was the most work they had done in months. Logan snapped to attention when I stepped down from my RV.

  “Thought you weren’t gonna make it brother!” he yelled enthusiastically. “Kleaner, let’s not slow the man down. Get our shit loaded!”

  “Relax, meathead, I’m sure they will give us a hand,” Kleaner replied. “We got a lot of stuff here.”

  As they continued to bicker like school girls, I looked at their stuff. At least thirty cases of military grade MREs, and eight or nine cases of Lake City 5.56, also military issue.

  These guys must have had a buddy who worked for the Army in supply or something. I saw box after box of Army issue equipment being loaded into our vehicles.

  “Very impressive guys,” I said after a low whistle.

  “We’re all high speed, low drag brother,” Logan replied with a smile.

  * * * * * * * *

  As this was all playing out, Stephen walked over to their building and started checking it out, eventually heading up to their apartment. For all the military gear that was stacked neatly outside, the upstairs was the exact opposite, a total disaster. Old pizza boxes were stacked in the corner all the way to the ceiling.

  You’d have to actually try to stack boxes that high, he thought.

  Garbage bags full of Mountain Dew and Pepsi cans were also strewn about. There was an impressive row of empty Jack Daniels bottles along the sides of a desk that had a large bank of video monitors on it. A cable ran into a closet that must have held some sort of battery bank, as evidenced by the fact that the monitors were still turned on. Several cameras showed the group finishing up the loading outside, and several more clearly showed the workout room downstairs as well as the locker room. Stephen let out a chuckle and suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. Spinning around, he found himself face to face with Logan, who was again sweating heavily.

  “Were you spying on the lovely Curves ladies downstairs?” Stephen asked, unable to hold back a smile.

  “Um... no...uh, those cameras we only put up afterwards... for...uh... watching for zombies,” Logan stated not very convincingly.

  “You don’t have to justify it to me, friend,” Stephen said, still chuckling. “We should bring this stuff with. It’s pretty high tech and looks expensive. We could probably use it at the prison.”

  Logan, now beaming with pride, stated what a fantastic idea that was and went on with a long dissertation on how much time and money were put into the setup. He also spewed technical mumbo jumbo that went right over Stephen’s head.

  “Hey!” Logan said loudly, snapping Stephen back to attention. “I got something else to show you!”

  He led Stephen to a bookshelf that had a row of binders on it. The names on the bindings read like familiar old books to Stephen: Nuclear War, EMP Strike, Solar Flares, Economic Collapse, Virus/ Pandemic, Natural Disasters, Asteroid Strike/Super Volcano, New Madrid Fault/Earthquake, New World Order/UN Invasion, Martial Law/Federal Crackdown, Second Civil War, and finally Zombies.

  Logan waved his meaty arm at the shelf. “My buddy and I put together standard operating procedures for every contingency we could think of. We did some reorganizing after we came through the 2012 Mayan scare without a hiccup awhile back. We added the zombie one last year after getting all liquored up. Who would have guessed that it’s the one we would need?” Logan laughed as he pulled the zombie binder from his collection.

  “That is actually pretty impressive man,” Stephen replied. “Let’s get some help up here to get those cameras so we can hit the road. And grab those manuals; they will be good reading material for later.”

  Stephen was grinning ear to ear as he walked down the stairs and back outside.

  “You got to check it out upstairs, Mike,” he said as he grabbed the last box and walked it to his new ride back and future home, a like-new 2014 Winnebago Adventurer. “You’ll get a kick out of there place. Apparently our large friend likes large gals.”

  A few minutes and several fat chick jokes later, a blushing Logan and Kleaner were on their way back to their new home. Kleaner was already talking about zombie security measures he wanted to implement at the prison as the convoy crawled east towards the river.

  The convoy was heading back to the prison with their newly acquired homes, and things were going well, almost too well. Dan was getting one of those feelings that he didn’t like and let me know via radio. As the convoy was traveling down the road, the lead elements came to a point in the road where several vehicles were bunched up, creating a long, narrow funnel. Similar to the term “fatal funnel”, it was a place you did not want to stop as you were passing through. To stop in a “fatal funnel” made you an easy target. This funnel was even worse because of the bend in the road. Dan couldn’t see the lead vehicles of the convoy as they made it through the bend.

  The trucks in front of him came to an abrupt stop. Dan’s visibility was restricted by the ass end of a large camper just to his front.

  “Shit, don’t stop here!” Dan yelled out loud before grabbing the radio to notify the others.

  “We got a fucking problem,” he radioed back. “The trucks in front of me were passing through that narrow spot and stopped. I’m going to jump out and see what’s going on. If their ride is disabled, then I’ll to tell them to get out of the way so the others can pass.”

  “Let us know if there’s a major problem,” Stephen replied. “I’ll send some guys to pull security.”

  Dan walked up to the lead truck that had stopped, and noticed that all the tires on the truck were flat, along with the tires on the 5th wheel camper.

  “That is not bad luck. It happened on purpose!” Dan yelled at the driver, who was out of his truck and scratching his head in disbelief. “Everyone that’s not driving get out of the trucks and pull security. I want a perimeter. We’re way too spread out here.”

  Several men jumped from their trucks and spread out. A few walked over to a large single story concrete block building that had several closed garage doors in the front. It appeared that it used to be an auto repair place. On each side of the door were parked cars that offered some cover.

  “Hey guys,” Dan yelled over the several large diesel engines that were at an idle. “One of you get on the roof of that building and take a look around. I got a bad feeling here.”

  “I got it!” he heard one of them yell back.
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  As Dan was looking down at the ground, he called out that he had spotted some debris that could have caused the flats. Twisted pieces of jagged metal were strewn about the roadway. They were perfect for flattening tires and had clearly done that quite effectively. Just before he reached down to grab one for a closer look, he heard the sound of a large metal door from the nearby auto mechanic shop opening up, followed by the thunderous sound of several semi-auto rifles beginning to fire. When he looked over, he saw no less than a hundred zombies pour out of the open doors to the shop and quickly overwhelm the men standing next to the building. They screamed in terror and fired wildly before being pulled down and torn open. Dan and two other men were backed up against one of the camper trailers, making speed reloads as fast as possible. The zombies closed the gap clumsily but still managed to grab the man just to Dan’s left as he went to reload. Dan slung his rifle and drew his 1911, shooting a zombie in the head just before its jaw snapped shut on his arm. He then climbed up onto the roof of the nearest camper, emptying his pistol into the twisting mass below him. The noise was now a liability, for it was drawing in additional zombies as the reports of multiple rifles all around the perimeter began to heat up.

  “Everyone close up ranks!” Dan screamed. “We got zombies in the wire!”

  Both of the men that had been standing by Dan when the attack began were now dead. Pausing to reload his last rifle magazine on his person, he turned again to face the group of zombies that poured out of the building. He had made the mistake of only having two extra rifle magazines on him when he got out of his vehicle.

  It was a rookie mistake, and he vowed that it would not happen again.

  Just as Dan was making a reload into his pistol, it must have seemed like God unleashed bolts of lightning at the zombies. They started to drop right below him as if they were being cut down by an invisible force. That force just happened to be Mike, Chris, Stephen and about six other men and women walking in a straight line formation, unleashing an amount of firepower normally seen only from a heavy machine gun. Dan watched the group of saviors closing the distance to his position.

  “Fuck yeah! Get some!” he shouted.

  When the last of the zombies dropped to the ground, Dan climbed off of the camper roof and was given a hug by a young man who had just killed his first zombies. That earned him a playful punch in the nose.

  “I’m happy too, kid,” Dan snarled, “but if you touch me again, I’ll feed you to the zombies myself.”

  Everyone was still on edge, as several in the group topped off their weapons while others looked around nervously.

  “Watch out for the ankle biters,” he reminded everyone. “I don’t wanna lose anybody else.”

  All around him sporadic shots were still going off, with nervous shooters hammering any fallen corpse that twitched.

  Dan walked back to his vehicle, kicking himself yet again for getting out of the truck with only a couple of magazines for his rifle. He looked up at a nearby four story building and thought he caught the flash of a reflection, maybe from a scope or binoculars. When he reached his bus, he grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked back up at the spot. Seeing nothing, he studied several other windows but failed to catch any movement.

  He knew somebody was watching them, but whom?

  He finally set the binoculars down, grabbed several more rifle magazines and headed back up front. The truck with the flat tires needed to be cleared out, and he wanted it done as fast as possible. He told everyone he passed to stay on their toes and watch for anything suspicious.

  * * * * * * * *

  “Okay, let’s get the fuck out of here before another group like that shows up!” Chris yelled, while heading back to his truck.

  Stephen told a couple of guys to jump in the truck with the flat tires and pull it out of the way.

  “I don’t care if it ruins the rims; just get it out of the way. Clean that debris off of the road and get the end of the convoy through that funnel,” he ordered. “Let’s get back to the prison before we run into any more nasty surprises.”

  I listened as Dan relayed what he had found on the road, and we made sure to send out a spotter so that it wouldn’t happen again. More and more zombies began to show up, and everyone was getting spooked. Finally Stephen gave the word that the road was cleared and I headed back to the large RV. Mattie was nervously awaiting my return.

  “What the hell was all that?” Mattie asked as we climbed back aboard the bus.

  “I’m not sure. I think we may have been bushwhacked. God only knows what sorts of people are lurking out there along with the undead.”

  My comments apparently struck a nerve, as Mattie visibly shivered at the thought.

  “I heard we lost four people,” she replied sadly, with a tear in her eye. “Who would want to do such a thing?”

  Crossing the bridge to the east side of town while licking our wounds, we observed a vehicle patrol from Kettle’s band of religious nut jobs returning from the south. They looked menacing but appeared to be minding their own business. The occasional zombie was dealt with harshly either by gunfire or the front bumper of a vehicle. They had fires lighting up their perimeter against failing sunlight, and it appeared that they had heavily fortified a much larger area than we thought. Several entire city blocks were now enclosed. I could see that they had indeed taken advantage of the natural barriers of the river on their west and raised train tracks to the east. Nothing strange there. We would have done the same. We gave them a wide berth and passed without incident.

  By the time we got back to the prison and my huge bus pulled into the gates, there was quite a crowd forming and all were cheering. Amazing what a little bit of shelter could do to make someone feel like they were human again. Several women were crying tears of joy as their men showed them their new homes. Exiting the bus as kids ran around with the endless energy of youth, it almost felt like a different world, like maybe we had a chance. Within minutes Logan and Kleaner were arguing about where to put the cameras, and I let out a satisfied chuckle. There were several grills going, and the smell of cooking food filled the air.

  “Who do you think was responsible for that zombie attack?” Chris asked as he walked up and handed me a hotdog. “I checked out that building before we pulled out and really didn’t find anything.”

  “I don’t have any idea,” I replied. “It could have just all been a coincidence, and the zombies could have just been trapped in there and we finally gave them the motivation to escape. But more than likely some asshole put them up to it for God only knows what reason. We have to be careful and watch out for all kinds of enemies, the living and the dead.”

  Stephen found a parking spot for his new home. It was a comical sight watching him struggle to back the large RV into just the right spot. After several attempts and a string of curses, the RV finally came to a rest and Stephen got out, setting the ground supports to level out his home.

  “Look what’s walking this way,” I said around a mouthful of hotdog and nodded at an attractive brunette who was walking towards Stephen.

  “He is blushing already,” Chris joked.

  Stephen looked up at my comment to see a familiar face approaching him. Her name was Amber, a good looking bartender with long brown hair that had worked at a local sports bar named Triple Threat. Stephen would frequent it often for Monday Night Football. The food was good, the beer cheap, and it didn’t hurt that Amber was quite an attractive host. She kept a loyal following of local horny young men, Stephen included.

  “What’s up stranger?” she asked playfully while reaching for a hug. “Long time no see?”

  “Amber!” Stephen responded with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Wow, I’m glad to see you’re alive!”

  “Don’t look so surprised to see me, Stephen; I can take care of myself when I need to!” Amber replied with a laugh. “My loser boyfriend lost his mind and ran off after a couple of days, and I never saw him again. I ended up making my way to my uncle�
��s house eventually. He’s a survivalist nut just like you and had all kinds of stuff packed up in his attic. We hid out at his place for a while and made our way here today after seeing this place lit up like a Christmas tree the last few nights.”

  “I don’t even know where to begin, so much has happened. I’m glad you’re okay and finally here,” Stephen said with a large grin. “We could use your good looks around here.”

  “I’ll contribute more than just my looks,” Amber snapped. “I was already helping in the gymnasium. Anyways… it looks like you have a lot to do at the moment. I saw you drive in and just wanted to tell ya good job on everything you got going here!”

  “Thanks, Amber, that means a lot coming from you,” Stephen replied, indeed blushing. “We’re all a team here, and I’m just doing my part.”

  “Always so humble, Stephen. Well I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around. I’m gonna need to get my uncle on that list for a camper too,” Amber stated with a wink, turned and walked away.

  Stephen was still watching her leave, admiring the view from behind, when he was brought crashing back to reality by me yelling his name.

  “Stephen!” I yelled jokingly. “Quit staring at her ass and come get your fat dog. He just snatched the rest of my hotdog right out of my hand! I wanna kill the little bastard! There’s probably not that many hotdogs left in the world.”

  Stephen laughed. “You gotta watch him, he’s a greedy little devil.”

  “There is plenty more on the grill tonight anyways,” Chris said. “I’ll make my way back over that way.”

  Stephen picked up his fat beagle and carried him towards his new camper.

  “Check out the new pad, Buddy,” Stephen said as he opened the door. “I’ve always wanted one of these!”

  40

  September 28

  Day 34

  Inside the dark office, narrow beams of sunlight lanced through the small gaps in the window blinds outlining five dirty, hard-looking men. Kettle looked at his followers standing in a semi-circle in front of his desk.