Zombie Crusade Snapshots: Volume I

by J. W. Vohs

  “Do you think we’ll really have to evacuate?” she asked matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah, most likely. Well, we might choose to evacuate over staying here once we find out what the guys with the helicopter want with us.”

  “Where would we go?” There was no hint of concern in Charlotte’s voice.

  “Somewhere with water, somewhere defensible,” Curtis answered.

  “I thought that’s what we had here,” Charlotte observed. “I don’t care about anything except keeping our kids safe, and I’m really not sure how to do that anymore.”

  Curtis reached over and put his hand on his wife’s arm. “Look, I don’t know what tomorrow may bring, but I swear I will protect you and the kids with my dying breath. I know I let you down. I know that the chill between us is my fault. You trusted me, and I betrayed you. And even though you’ve tried, I don’t think that you can really forgive me. You remember what you said when you threw me out? You said it never would have occurred to you to be unfaithful, so maybe you missed the signs that I was vulnerable. You didn’t just blame me, you blamed yourself too.” When Charlotte started to respond, he held up his hand to put off the interruption. “Baby, you had nothing to do with it--I was the idiot. If I could go back and do things differently I would—we’ve been all over this in counseling, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t take back the hurt. I keep waiting and hoping for some magic moment where everything clicks with us again, and I’ll keep waiting unless you tell me not to. You and the kids are my life, but in my heart I know I don’t deserve you . . .”

  Charlotte pursed her lips and bit her tongue. She stared at her husband for several seconds before leaning over and kissing him with a passion he hadn’t felt in a very long time. After a few minutes, she pulled back and laughed out loud. “Jesus, Curtis, you’d think that living through a zombie pandemic would put things in perspective, wouldn’t you? I mean, I thought people bonded through adversity. The whole damn world has been falling apart around us, and we were still letting ancient personal issues interfere with our daily lives. We’re both idiots.”

  “At least our kids are pretty smart,” Curtis teased. “Wanna get lucky before we go track them down? I know an isolated little camper not far from here.”

  Charlotte grinned. “I’ve missed your romantic propositions. Let’s get moving so you can remind me of what else I’ve been missing.”

  * * *

  Morning arrived cold and cloudy, most members of the settlement nervous and jittery following a restless night in which sleep proved difficult to achieve. The hours following the dawn crept along with no sign of Major Jackson or any other government representative. As the sun approached its zenith, the various commanders began to assign details of soldiers to leave their posts for a quick meal, only to have their lunch interrupted minutes later when several Jeeps were seen thundering toward the opening in the wall.

  Meeks stood about twenty feet inside the protected perimeter, with Hewitt and Harden close behind him. Major Jackson was in the lead vehicle, and he waited until all the Jeeps were lined up and idling before venturing out to greet the sheriff. He held out his hand, “Glad to see we’re welcome, but we’ll need to open up some more access points for my men.”

  “How many men are we expectin’?” Meeks causally asked as he gave Jackson’s hand a firm shake. “We could fix up a meal fit for an old time Thanksgivin’ and get to know each other.”

  Jackson waved his hand dismissively, “No need for that. How many able-bodied workers are living in this settlement?”

  “Able-bodied workers? Can’t say for sure. How many vaccines you got available for distribution?”

  “I’ll be the one asking the questions from now on,” Jackson stated. “What’s your food storage situation here?”

  The sheriff rocked back and forth on his heels for a minute and stared off toward the horizon. “Seems to me that you’re pretty interested in our workers and our food supply—what is it exactly that you say you can do for us? Other than tell us that we can’t ask any questions.”

  Jackson narrowed his eyes. “Now look here, Sheriff Hilljack, I don’t have to explain myself again. The government of the United States is pretty busy right now, and you should thank your lucky stars I showed up to protect your people and your resources.”

  “I tell ya what, Major Smart Ass, you go fetch us some of that vaccine you’ve been talkin’ about and then we can try this conversation again. I’ll meet you back here in two hours.” With that, Sheriff Meeks turned and walked away.

  “Come back here!” Jackson shouted after him.

  Russell Hewitt stepped forward and attempted to smooth things over. “Never mind him,” Hewitt began, “I—“

  “Who the hell are you?” Jackson demanded.

  “Russell Hewitt, from our leadership council. The sheriff overestimates his authority. I’m sure we can work out any misunderstandings. What is it you need from us?”

  “I need you to stop wasting my time,” Jackson sneered. “How many able-bodied workers do you have here?”

  “Well, I’m not certain,” Hewitt replied, “but I’d say at least a thousand.”

  “And you’ve got food stored for the winter?” Jackson pressed.

  “Of course we do,” Hewitt explained, “even more than that. I’m sure I could negotiate supplies for you if you need anything.”

  Jackson laughed out loud. “Tell me, Mr. Hewitt, why would I need your services?”

  “Because I understand that you have a lot to offer, and I’m in a position to influence the people here.” A small crowd was beginning to gather around them. “It may take some time, but I can convince these fine folks that cooperating with you, and sharing our bounty, would be advantageous to our long term safety and prosperity.”

  “Yeah, you sound like a politician,” Jackson observed. “I’m not real fond of politicians, but you were right when you said you could help me convince these people to cooperate.” He pulled his revolver and shot Hewitt right between the eyes. There were a few screams and the crowd quickly dispersed as Jackson shouted, “You will cooperate with my soldiers or we will eliminate you.” He locked eyes with the gray-eyed military-type who’d been standing close to Hewitt—the man hadn’t moved a muscle in all the commotion. “Why are you still here? You the type that freezes up under pressure?”

  “Nope,” Harden replied. “I’m the type whose gonna make you and your men turn around and leave quietly.”

  Jackson snorted and waved a signal that brought his men out of their vehicles, weapons drawn. “And how do you think you’re going to manage that?”

  Harden gave a signal of his own, a low whistle that brought hundreds of fighters out from various concealed locations. Jackson and his men were outnumbered and surrounded in less than thirty seconds. Harden glowered at Jackson, “You’re damn lucky that I’d prefer not to start a shootin’ match inside our walls, and that I don’t want to waste even one of my fighters on the likes of your kind. Of course, I could always change my mind, so I suggest you take your men and be on your way. I’m already regretting that fact that I haven’t killed you yet.”

  Jackson smiled and saluted Captain Harden. “You may just be the biggest damn fool I’ve ever met, but you’ll be dead or one of the infected by nightfall. Think of me when you’re going down.” He signaled his men to retreat, and one-by-one the Jeeps lazily drove off into the afternoon beyond the wall.

  * * *

  Less than an hour later, the distinctive thump of helicopter rotors could be heard in the distance. The evacuation of the civilians had begun in earnest as soon as Sheriff Meeks had rejected Jackson, but the settlement’s soldiers were preparing to make a stand in order to buy more time to get everyone out. From their fighting positions, they watched a Blackhawk materialize on the eastern horizon, flying just above treetop level as it headed directly toward the settlement. This time the chopper stayed several hundred meters away from the walls, and most of the fighters assumed that an observer inside
the bird was carefully looking over the situation without risking the danger of potential ground-fire from the obviously uncooperative survivors. After five minutes or so, the helicopter completed a wide loop that turned its nose in the direction from which it had approached and then fled the area with as much speed as it could muster.

  The soldiers manning the walls were confused. When nothing happened after a half-hour had passed, the sheriff ordered two scout teams to use Jeeps they kept hidden in the woods outside the walls to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the areas to the north and east of the palisade. The people left behind were restless but quiet; the nervously barking dogs roaming the streets were the only sounds of note as everyone anxiously awaited word from the scout teams.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Less than fifteen minutes after leaving on the mission, the first of the Jeeps came tearing down the road from the northeast. The men inside didn’t even bother to use their radio before they pulled right up to the edge of the wall and jumped into the canoes they’d left behind for their return. Sheriff Meeks and the other surviving members of the leadership council, along with several company commanders, hurried over to meet with the wide-eyed, obviously shaken soldiers pulling their boats up onto the bank. They all began to shout out information at the same time.

  Their company commander finally got the men to stop talking and asked the team leader to make his report. A burly ex-Marine just shook his head and declared, “We’ve gotta get outta here, sir. We gotta get all the non-fighters onto boats and try to hold the wall until they’re downstream.”

  “Calm down, son,” the company commander calmly advised. “We started the evacuation over an hour ago. Now tell us what you saw.”

  The team leader just looked around wildly in response, finally calling out, “Where’s my wife? Donna? Donna?”

  One of the other men finished off the water bottle that had been handed to him and told his commander, “There are thousands of runners a few miles to the east.”

  “Tens of thousands,” another soldier grimly added. “And these bastards are all moving fast; all of ‘em are in great condition from what we could see.”

  The team leader was calming down after a long pull on a bottle of bourbon somebody had produced, and he took a deep breath before explaining, “Sir, I swear there’s a hundred thousand of ‘em. All of ‘em are like Riley said: full-fledged runners. We ain’t gotta chance, sir, we gotta get everybody on the river now.”

  Marlon Morris sputtered, “This is ridiculous! Nothing can get over our walls, and you know as well as I do that they won’t try to cross the river. We’re putting our people in danger sending them out on the river, away from the safety of our walls.”

  Sheriff Meeks just frowned as he slowly shook his head, “They can get over these walls if there’s enough of ‘em.” He spat more juice on the muddy ground and decided, “Everyone who can use a pike needs to be on the palisade. We already got a lot of folks loaded up on boats and anchored out on the river to see how the fight goes.”

  Twenty minutes after the first helicopter was spotted, an army of flesh-eaters burst into sight. Soon the entire horizon was filled with the creatures moving beneath two hovering helicopters. The choppers finally flew directly at the settlement, completing short circles above the ramshackle buildings and the more imposing walls. Major Jackson fired up the radio on the lead helicopter and called out, “Big Kahuna this is Kahuna One, over.”

  Following a momentary burst of static, a distorted voice came over the receiver, “This is Big Kahuna. Go ahead, over.”

  “Yeah, Big Kahuna, this Tennessee settlement has a lot of people, and supposedly tons of food, but they’re not the cooperative type. Do you want to try to salvage some workers here? Collect their supplies? I can guarantee they’re pissing themselves right now since they’ve seen what’s headed their way. Over.”

  “Kahuna One, there’s water in every form known to man between us and our objectives. We’re going to see plenty more settlements protected by rivers and lakes where we’re headed. I think the survivors in this region need to see what happens if they try to resist. Send in the troops.”

  Major Jackson’s face spread into an expectant grin as he replied, “Copy that, Big Kahuna. I was hoping you’d say that. We’ll send out a situation report once the settlement has been neutralized. Kahuna One out.”

  Inside the small community of survivors, the situation was devolving into chaos. People who had resisted the idea of leaving the settlement were now running every which way with their most treasured belongings, trying to stow everything they thought they couldn’t live without into the fleet of small watercraft beached along the bank. A group of soldiers formed a line to the storehouses, where they were moving food supplies into what passed for barges on the upper Cumberland: small, rubber rafts with a sheet of plywood fastened to the top.

  Most of the soldiers were standing on the fighting platform at the top of the log-wall, struggling to keep their fears in check as the horde of monsters swarmed over the countryside, many of them loping along in that peculiar stride they could maintain for hours when in pursuit of prey. Each defender was responsible for about eight feet of the palisade, which wasn’t a bad ratio for manning fortifications. Most ancient commanders of castle garrisons would have been quite pleased with the soldier-to-space numbers waiting to receive the enemy attack. Somehow, Captain Harden remained calm and composed, but Sheriff Meeks continued to feel panic lapping at the edge of his consciousness as he walked behind the fighters, shouting encouragement to disguise his doubts as the army of flesh-eaters approached. The bottle of bourbon used to calm the frantic scout a few minutes earlier was now in his hand, and frequent nips of the strong whiskey helped the old police officer maintain his sanity.

  The sight of the army of infected was truly awe-inspiring for anyone who could set aside their fear for a moment and take in the view. From flank to flank, as far as the eye could see, naked flesh-eaters covered in pink scar tissue silently trotted toward the wall through the woods, brush, and fields. Their numbers were impossible to calculate. They might have been fifty thousand or a million; a medieval general might have been able to offer a fairly accurate estimate of how many monsters were marching with the army below, but the modern, veteran soldiers peering over the wall had no idea how to count the creatures heading toward the settlement.

  As the vanguard of the attacking force reached the banks of the Cumberland, the mass of flesh-eaters was forced to constrict by the presence of the river on each flank. For the first time, some of the defenders began to believe that they had a chance to repulse the enemy. They finally realized that no matter the size of the army assaulting the settlement, to get at the people behind the wall the monsters would have to funnel into a thousand-meter front and try to climb a fifteen-foot-high palisade constructed with stout telephone poles and stripped logs. While the creatures were bunching up and contending with the fortifications, the experienced fighters manning the defenses would be steadily and mercilessly thrusting razor-sharp steel into their brains. The soldiers began to shout encouragement to one another, tossing around numbers of attackers that each of them would have to kill in order to keep the monster-army from breeching the wall.

  Few soldiers were focused on the helicopters hovering above the settlement, but the flesh-eaters instinctively responded to the choppers’ presence as they stopped fifty meters from the wall and stood quietly, many of them cocking their heads as if they were trying to hear some faint sound in the distance. Finally, one of the biggest pack-leaders looked up and saw the people standing on the fighting platform. He gnashed his teeth and growled, then tilted his head back and roared a blood-thirsty howl that seemed to echo across the settlement for one brief, frightening, moment in time.

  Some of the soldiers had only minutes to live, while a few had some haphazard years ahead of them yet, but none of the fighters standing behind the palisade ever forgot what happened next. Seemingly as one, the tens of thousands of mons
ters stretching to the horizon followed their leader’s example by roaring their fury into the air above them. If anybody preparing to defend the wall had tried to speak at that moment they wouldn’t have been heard by someone standing right next to them. Survivors of the attack who later tried to explain the sound to people who weren’t there claimed the creatures were as loud as a huge passenger jet passing directly overhead only a few meters above the ground. But volume wasn’t the most memorable characteristic of the creatures’ battle cry, and anyone who lived to tell the story claimed there was no way to even come close to describing the terror they felt as the thunderous-howl engulfed the settlement in the seconds before the assault on the wall began.

  With the sound of the monsters’ roars of hunger still reverberating through the defenders’ heads, the flesh-eaters attacked. They hit the palisade at a dead run and leapt at the soldiers with a madness that sent a few of the fighters screaming from the platform as they lost their private struggles against the unimaginable horror below them. Somehow, most of the soldiers pushed down their fear and stayed in their assigned positions, where they began systematically spearing the creatures as they came within range of the cruel pikes. Many of the defenders fought with a cool deadliness that their ancestors who’d stood in the ranks at Shiloh and Chickamauga a century and a half earlier would have recognized and taken pride in. The Tennesseans might not be able to win this battle, but they could resist the invaders with every ounce of will in their hearts and strength in their bodies. On this day, they honored their glorious heritage.