by Matt Hart
He'd have to make a mental note to remember to get more batteries.
“I can take this stuff home or I can try to help a couple of kids,” he said to himself. He was a loner—no one to go home to, no one to greet him when he got there. He had supplies enough for three days of camping in the big frame backpack, and plenty of woodcraft and hunting gear to help him last a long while out in the woods.
“Ahh, hell,” he muttered. He exited the building and drove the electric cart back under its port next to the building, then removed all the weapons and ammo he'd loaded. He put on his backpack, pocketed the golf cart keys, then locked up. He walked down the road and watched for signs of the couple. When he spotted their footprints, he turned and followed them into the brush.
Chapter 11
Salisburg, Massachusetts
“Hold there,” called Richard. Jeffrey stopped and knelt, scanning in front and to the sides using his scope.
“Couldn't think to grab some binoculars, could you?” Jeffrey asked himself. He glanced back at his uncle, who was running up to leapfrog him. Well, jogging, or maybe just huffing up. The big man looked like he was having trouble moving with the overloaded pack on his back. Richard moved up and past Jeffrey, then slowed and raised his Weatherby to peer through the scope. Richard paused and looked back at his nephew.
“Move it up, dumbass!” he called out. Jeffrey stood sheepishly and jogged forward and past Richard. He could see the other road now, and part of the store they must be heading toward. Lumbering, clanking, Richard moved past him and took up a standing position about twenty yards ahead. The pair continued moving until they reached the store.
“There's the truck,” said Richard. “Get up here and check it. I'll get some food from the store.” He stood and walked toward the store as Jeffrey hurried to catch up. Swapping out the Weatherby for the Maverick shotgun, Richard shrugged off the backpack and walked slowly into the convenience store, flipping on the tactical flashlight as he entered. “Hey freaks!” he yelled out, “Dinnertime!” No sounds echoed in the darkness, and no creatures shambled out of the aisles. He turned and walked back out the door to check on his nephew.
Jeffrey walked over to the truck and opened the driver's door and checked the compartment for lingering passengers. He took off his pack and climbed in, but there were no keys. He got back out and hunted around under the seats without success. He stood and walked around the truck to check the passenger side, then noticed that both tires on the passenger side and the driver's rear tire were flat.
“Hey Uncle Richard,” he called out as he stepped closer to the blown front tire. A small hole in the sidewall was still leaking air. “We got three flats on this truck.” He stood and saw his uncle walking toward him from the store.
“What the hell?” asked Richard, anger on his features, or at least “angrier” on his features. He always looked angry.
Jeffrey pointed to the tire. “Looks like a gunshot.” Richard stared at the tire for a few seconds, then raised his shotgun and fired five rounds at the store's sign in anger, cursing and screaming. Jeffrey dropped his rifle and let it hang on the sling, covering his ears at the loud boom of the Maverick 12 gauge.
“Dammit! That must have been the shots we heard earlier. But who...” Richard stopped and raised his shotgun, then ducked behind the truck. “That Jen bitch! Maybe she found a gun or some guy to whore out to. But why bust up the truck instead of just taking it?” He quickly reloaded the shotgun with shells from his vest.
“Who's Jen?” asked Jeffrey.
“Never mind. Get the tire size, maybe we can find something that will fit.”
“No keys in it, and I couldn't find them in or around the truck.”
Richard stood and shrugged. “Doesn't matter, old truck like this, we'll be able to start it, no problem,” he said confidently. He walked back to the store and swapped out the shotgun for his rifle. Jeffrey picked up his backpack and walked over to his uncle and stood silently. Richard turned to Jeffrey and said, “Get some breakfast from the store and then come back out. What size were the tires?”
“Two forty-five, seventy seventeen,” said Jeffrey. “Five lug bolts.”
“Alright then, pretty common,” said Richard. He looked at Jeffrey, who continued to watch his uncle. “Get a move on, dumbass!” yelled Richard suddenly. “Breakfast!”
Jeffrey jumped as Richard barked at him and hurried into the store, stumbling over the remains of someone, or something.
Richard raised the Steiner scope to his eye and scanned the area around the store. “I'm gonna recon,” he called to Jeffrey. He walked slowly around the truck, alternately scanning with and without the scope. He made his way to the center of the road and carefully turned a full circle as he looked through the scope. He lowered the rifle and walked across the street to the rental dealership. As he turned the corner, he immediately saw the dead zombies scattered around the back. He also saw the detached fence and pieces of cord around it.
“Crap they were right here,” he muttered. He stepped around the fence and saw the arrangement of mowers. “Made themselves a little cubby and spent the night.” He grinned, recalling how he'd spent the prior evening. He put the scope to his eye and looked around behind the rental store, but didn't see anything. There was a big spruce tree that would make a good lookout post though, so he made his way there. Crawling underneath, his hand touched a small piece of metal. He picked it up and examined it in the dim light beneath the tree.
“Twenty-two shell,” he said, looking around. He spotted a piece of plastic and picked it up. “And a 20 gauge shell.” His hand closed around the spent shotgun round.
“Hello, you murdering bastard,” he said in a low voice. “I'm coming for you.”
Chapter 12
Interlude : Lake Lahontan, Nevada
Chris turned the key on his new the Starcraft ski boat for about the hundredth time. The engine turned over but didn't start. He sighed and looked at his cell phone again. It wasn't working, but he knew there was no reception in this canyon anyway.
There were three parts to Lake Lahontan, which was located an hour east of Reno, Nevada. The riverhead formed a good-sized shallow lake that got deeper as it neared a pair of cliffs, cutting a channel at least fifty feet deep. This opened into an even bigger lake area that was great for skiing, but didn't have as much beach area as the first section. Then the river cut through a long, narrow channel that was at least five miles long. The cliffs on either side were a hundred feet high or higher, and there were only two beaches for anchoring and no real way out of the canyon except on the water. The cliffs finally gave way to the main lake where engineers from the Army Corps had built one of the first dams they'd ever constructed.
Chris was anchored at the small beach near the main lake. He'd been fishing for pike and had fallen asleep shortly after a pair of fishermen had left the beach area. A dad had dropped his son off at the beach and then anchored near Chris. They'd chatted briefly about catching pike when the man's son interrupted them.
“Dad! I got one!” he'd yelled from the shore.
“Great son! Way to go!” called the dad. He'd turned to Chris and explained, “He's fishing for smallmouth bass.”
Chris nodded and watched as the boy hauled in a small silver fish. He strung it through a line and tossed it back into the water, anchoring the line with a rock on the shore. The boy cast his line back out and began reeling it in slowly.
“Must be a lure,” thought Chris. He'd asked and the father confirmed it was a Rooster Tail. He watched the boy cast again and slowly reel in the line.
The pole bent sharply and the boy called out again, “Got another one!”
“Great son,” yelled the dad. Again the boy pulled in a small silver fish and attached it to his fish line.
Just a few minutes later came another yell, “Got another one!”
“Shut up, son!” yelled the dad, laughing. Chris smiled at the byplay, and laughed even harder as the boy pulled in twelve mo
re fish over the course of about an hour, following the school he'd so obviously found as it moved up and down the beach.
Every time he caught one, he'd yell “Got another one dad!” plus maybe “You got one yet?”
His dad would always reply with, “Shut up!” and they would both laugh. In the end, the kid caught fifteen fish and his dad managed to catch just a single pike.
Chris still hadn't caught his pike, so he stayed in the cove and ended up falling asleep. When he awoke in what he thought was the early evening – his fancy waterproof diving watch was dead so he didn't know the exact time – he'd tried to start up and head back only to find the engine wouldn't run. All night he'd waited for some other boat to come through, but none came. He wasn't terribly surprised since navigating the narrow channel was risky at night. But early fishermen should have been heading out for crappie and catfish, best caught in the early dawn hours. Expert skiers would often come through the channel as well, taking advantage of the calm waters provided by the windbreak of the high cliffs.
But nothing had come through; no boats at all! It might be another day before he was missed for real, since he was supposed to be back to work tomorrow.
“There's no way that boats haven't been through here yet,” he muttered to himself as he wondered what to do. Chris looked up and opened his tackle box. Taking out a small float, he went to the stern and tossed it into the water to watch it drift. He sat still for fifteen minutes as the float drifted toward the center of the channel, heading toward the main lake.
“I sure can't get out of this lake from here,” he said, eyeing the top of the canyon. He walked to the bow and pulled on the anchor line, grunting with effort. The anchor came free of the sandy bottom and he stored it in a compartment beneath the seats. His boat was a tri-hull with an open bow. Three or four riders could sit in front of the driver, with four more seats at the stern.
“Most stable design,” the salesman told him, “Perfect for a beginner boater like yourself.” Why he'd bought a ski boat when he didn't have any friends to ski with was beyond him.
“Should have just gotten a canoe,” he thought. Chris sat in the front of the boat as the morning sun began to chase away the deep shadows of the canyon. The boat drifted imperceptibly toward the center of the channel. He dropped a line into the water, fishing as he drifted along.
Chapter 13
Interlude : Dharavi: Mumbai, India
There were few sounds in the squalid streets outside of the city, in sharp contrast to the previous night when screams had ripped through the oppressive silence of the slums. Crashing noises shattered the night's rest as the creatures created by the bio-infester had multiplied through the insecure shelters until the entire encampment was either turned or dead, food for the growing army of zombies.
Sixteen hours later, the only movement was the aimless shuffling of feet. Occasionally, one of the creatures would stumble and crash against a broken wall or knock over a corrugated steel roof. Sometimes, other zombies would mistake the clumsy one for a normal and attack him. More often they would just bite him a few times and then leave him alone.
Seems the taste of a zombie wasn't terribly appealing to another zombie.
The subdued creatures looked up as an explosion boomed out in the distance. The army of zombies turned and began walking toward the rising column of smoke, centered in the city of 12 million people.
Chapter 14
Erin : San Diego, California
Joe moved ahead of me and turned down the street toward the ocean. He peered around the corner to the right where the house was burning. He nodded and jogged across the intersection to the far side. I followed him and looked at the burning house and big truck in the front. The brake lights came on and the engine roared. I stopped for a second and watched, but Camo Joe called to me to hurry up.
“Hold onto your drawers, I'm coming!” I told him. “They're too busy to see me anyway.”
“It's not that,” said Joe, jogging beside me, “It's the garage. As soon as that fire...”
Just then a tremendous explosion sounded and it was like the Fourth of July, with popping noises and sparks flying in the air.
“It's that!” yelled Joe, breaking into a run. “The guys in that house were gun nuts, and they had a garage full of ammunition and gas and explosives!”
“Yeah, tell me something I don't know, Captain Obvious!”
“Uh,” he said, huffing as ran, “The Army used giant gliders in the Normandy Invasion,” he said.
“That bit of trivia and a dollar will get you a pack of gum,” I said, mimicking my mom. Joe barked a short laugh and then slowed to a walk.
“I guess we don't have to worry about the people in that truck,” he said.
“Or wasting bullets on their sorry excuses for a human,” I added. I was pretty angry. Those people had shot at me, ME, for no reason other than I was in a house with a working truck. “Joe.” I stopped and he looked at me. “Joe,” I repeated, trying to form my question. “Will people try to kill us if they see we have a working sailboat?”
Joe looked thoughtful. “I don't know,” he began. “There are probably other sailboats around if they wanted to just take one. And if they didn't know how to sail, they'd be stupid to kill us if we look like we know what we're doing.”
I cocked my head and smiled. “Do you know what you're doing?”
“Well, no, but I hope you'll make me presentable.”
“I'll do my best, Sailor Joe,” I said, clapping his back and pointing down the street toward the ocean. “Let's take the quickest route. This scenic crap is going to get us killed.”
Joe nodded in agreement. He checked his clothing for loose and noisy articles and strapped them down.
“Or stuck on a fence,” I added as he tightened his vest, grinning as I remembered him trying to climb down the night before.
“Shuuuut uuuup,” he said with a smile. He finished tightening his gear and turned to me.
“Jump up and down,” he said. I just looked at him like he was crazy. “So I can see if your gear is noisy.” I got it – no need to attract zombies if we could help it. I jumped and rattled a bit, and Joe tightened down a few loose items.
He finished, then turned and headed down the street. I belatedly realized he had technically touched me.
I smiled.
I hadn't even thought about it.
Chapter 15
Joe : San Diego, California
Erin and I moved quickly down the street in the early San Diego dawn. The false dawn was peaking above the mountains to the west, and the dark ocean beckoned in glimpses as we moved forward. “God what a mess,” I thought. “Try to sleep and people steal your truck and try to set you on fire.” I thought about all those nice supplies we'd had to leave. I stroked the nice AK I'd managed to snag from the house. It was good to have some real stopping power.
“What'd you name her?” asked Erin. I looked over and saw her walking parallel with me.
I grinned sheepishly. She'd seen me petting the stupid gun. “Uh...” I said intelligently. “Uh...,” I repeated, because it worked so well the first time I said it. Erin smiled and the night brightened. “Milla Jovovich.”
“What? Who?”
“You know, the actress from Resident Evil, fights zombie things?”
“Well you'd better shorten it so I know what you're asking for if you yell it during some zombie infestation we're clearing out,” she said. “And if you yell 'It's Milla Time!' I'm gonna punch you.”
“That's okay, you hit like a girl.” I grinned. Erin smiled and sauntered up to me, raising her left fist like she was about to smack me. I showed her my shoulder.
I didn't even see the baton before she whacked my butt with it.
Hard. And it hurt.
“Ow!” I yelled.
“Quit screaming like a little girl again, we've got a boat to get to.”
I shook my head and smiled, so thankful that I had Erin for such a time as this. Surviving a
zombie apocalypse was easier with someone you love. I shook my head again.
That would have made an interesting quote for that FEMA article a few years back. They had created a joke web article back then about surviving a zombie apocalypse. It was designed so people could have fun while learning some good information about generally surviving disasters. It worked too – became viral and widely read.
“Wake up Dreamy Joe,” said Erin. “We have company.”
I realized I'd been daydreaming a bit – damn dangerous thing to do right now. I looked up and saw a mob in the distance. They were all headed this way. “They must have heard the explosion,” I said as I stopped. The group was three blocks away and closing quickly. It looked like hundreds, but was probably only about fifty. The night, the distance, the situation caused wild estimations of enemy concentrations, but Ranger training instilled a back-of-the-brain calculator that brought the real number to mind.
“Fifty, two hundred yards,” I said. I turned right and headed down the side street. Yet another delay. When we cleared the line of sight of the creatures, I changed from a fast walk into a run – at least as much of a run as I could manage with all this gear. I turned my head to check on Erin, but she was already about to pass me.
“Erin!” I called in a low voice. She didn't look back, just shook her head and passed me, then proceeded to sprint ahead. “Erin!” I called again, but she ignored me. I risked a glance back, but the zombie mob hadn't made it to our street yet. I looked ahead just in time to see Erin duck behind a large SUV in a driveway on the left. I ran as fast as I could manage and turned at the big Escalade with the gaudy gold spinning rims, but Erin wasn't there. I tried to catch my breath as I looked for her. A hand popped above a car in front the next house and motioned for me to follow. I looked around the SUV and then walked slow and low toward the next car. She wasn't there either, blast the girl! A hand popped up over the next car.