Peter Martuneac
His
Name
Was Zach
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Peter W. Martuneac. All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Dedicated to my loving wife and our beautiful children.
You kids can read this when you’re older.
And to Kurtis Ferrier, for deciphering my deplorable
penmanship as he reviewed this story in its infancy.
Cover art done by Cody Phan
Chapter One
The man in camouflage utilities walked slowly down the weed-ridden sidewalk. It was deserted for now, but undue noise had the potential to attract unwanted attention. He could walk quietly, even in his military-style boots, which might have been heavy and cumbersome to most, but years spent wearing such footwear had made them feel as light as sandals to him.
A black Jack Daniel’s bandana around his forehead kept the sweat out of his dark, onyx-colored eyes; it was summer, and even in the relatively mild climate of Chicago the temperature could soar above ninety degrees Fahrenheit. He carried a Smith & Wesson rifle that was painted in the same camo pattern as the man’s clothes, a pattern known as A-TACS. A .45 caliber, 1911 pistol was on his thigh in a tactical holster, and a large KA-BAR was sheathed behind him on his right side. He gave his shoulders a shrug, adjusting the green military ruck, filled with canned goods and water, on his back.
Behind the man walked a pretty, young girl. She was fourteen years old, and Abby was her name. Her hazelnut hair, a shade lighter than the man’s short, military style hair, was pulled back into a ponytail which poked out of the back of a raggedy baseball hat. Like the man, she also wore boots, but these were hiking boots and did not have steel toes like the man’s boots did. “Boots last longer, and they protect your ankles better,” was what the man had told Abby when she asked if she could wear her old shoes instead, and she did not argue with him.
The man was not her father, but he had always provided for and protected her like a father would. Abby had actually never known her real father, and her mother had been murdered in the early days of the outbreaks, or The Crisis as it was often called, so she was all alone when the man found her almost two years ago. She had made him a bracelet out of survival cord after living with him for a few weeks to show her appreciation, and he still wore it to this day.
She carried a backpack that was filled with things they had found on this scavenging trip into the abandoned city of Chicago: cans of food, a few bottles of water, ammunition, and some batteries. She also found an old People magazine which the man let her take. She enjoyed reading these old magazines, as they made her feel nostalgic about how things had been in the ‘Before Times’, which is what people generally called the time prior to The Crisis. She thought her pack was heavy, but she knew that the man’s ruck was far heavier, and so did not complain. She did not have a rifle, but she did have a 9mm Glock 17 tucked into the back of her olive-green cargo pants. A Gerber combat knife hung from her belt on her right side, and a slingshot was stuffed in her back pocket. This slingshot was one of her most prized possessions, since the man had made it for her years ago, just days after meeting her.
Abby’s bright grey eyes slowly swept from right to left, looking for any threats or useful items that they could take. The man had trained her to look from right to left when scanning her surroundings. “Years of reading from left to right makes your eyes lazy,” he’d told her, “so you’re likely to miss something unless you look from right to left”.
Suddenly, she stopped walking, reached out, and tapped the man in front of her twice, their signal to stop. He froze in place and cocked his good ear towards her (he was half deaf in his left ear, thanks to his many deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry Marine).
“Zach, I see one over there,” she whispered, pointing to the right. Zach, for that was the man’s name, looked across the street, and through the broken window of what used to be a souvenir shop, he could see it. It was a man who had probably been in his fifties when he was infected, judging by the large bald spot on the back of its head. It was not walking around, but swaying back and forth in place. Abby always thought that this meant they were asleep, if zombies ever slept.
Zach put a finger to his lips, and Abby nodded. They quickened their pace, but stayed quiet. “Never start a confrontation with those things, or you’ll bring down hordes of them,” Zach had always said. Their scavenging trip had gone without a hitch thus far, and he intended to keep it that way. Cities were always dangerous, not only because of the thousands of undead, but also due to the anarchic war-bands that roamed around their tiny empires, terrorizing innocent survivors.
Zach hated these people more than zombies. The zombies were just animals, and you can’t hate an animal for following its instincts to eat and survive. But people had no excuse for their behavior. And preying on the innocent, raping and murdering just because there is no one to punish you for your actions was despicable.
The pair kept walking for a few blocks until they finally returned to where they had parked their truck, a gunmetal-grey Ford F-150. Zach had found it in the garage of an abandoned house some months back, and though they didn’t drive it often because of the scarcity of fuel, it was nice to have, especially on these long trips. They kept it hidden when they were not using it, out in the farmland areas. They tossed their packs into the truck bed and then climbed into the cab. Zach turned the key and the big engine roared to life. He drove away quickly, knowing that the noise could be heard for miles around.
“So when are you going to let me drive?” Abby asked after a few minutes of silence, her subtle Southern twang lightly accenting that last word.
Zach chuckled and said, “Maybe when you can reach the pedals.”
“But I can! I’ve grown an inch this year, so I’m five foot three now. See?” she replied, stretching her feet to the floor. But Zach just smiled and shook his head, knowing Abby was just teasing him. She smiled back and said, “We did really well today, didn’t we?”
“We sure did. Hopefully we won’t have to resupply for a few weeks.”
“And we didn’t have any close calls like last time,” said Abby as she took her hat off and tossed it into the back seat. Zach just grunted in reply. He didn’t like having their last trip into the city brought up because a zombie had almost bit Abby. Just thinking about it now made him uncomfortable and so he started to whistle a tune to lighten his mood.
“What’s that song?” Abby asked.
“It’s the theme from ‘The Andy Griffith Show’,” Zach replied.
“Never heard of it,” Abby said.
“What, are you serious?” Zach asked, looking at Abby in disbelief.
“Uh, yeah. Why, was it a big deal or something?”
“A big deal or…” Zach said, shaking his head. “Yeah, it was a big deal! It was one of the first great comedies on TV, kid!”
“Okay, so it came out in like the 60’s then? That was like forty years before I was born, Zach. Well before my time.”
“Well yeah, but I mean they show re-runs on TV and there’s DVD sets and stuff. It came out a long time before I was born too, but I still watched it. It was a timeless classic!”
“Well, it obviously wasn’t that timeless,” Abby said with a smirk as she put her feet up on the dash.
&
nbsp; “Oh, that’s terrible,” Zach muttered.
“You’re terrible,” Abby replied.
They then drove in silence again. After a while, Abby turned in her seat and watched Zach, studying his face. It had been a few days since he had last shaved, so a beard was starting to form on his cheeks and around his mouth. She liked when he had a beard, she thought it made him look ‘more dad-ish’, as she described it. The lines around his eyes were deep for a man in his mid-thirties, belying a hard life. He had taken off his bandana, so she could see the scars on Zach’s forehead. Puberty had not been kind to him, and he had been plagued with severe acne all the way through his teenage years. It was long gone, but the scars remained. She noticed that his dark eyes were fixed straight ahead, not searching left and right as usual. Something was bothering him.
“What’s wrong, Zach?” she asked.
“Huh? Nothing’s wrong, I’m just tired.”
“Don’t give me that. I can tell when you’re upset, so what is it?”
He kept quiet for a few moments, and then said, “Tomorrow is July 6th.”
Abby instantly recognized the date, and then felt bad for forgetting its significance to Zach. July 6th was the anniversary of when he had married the woman he loved. But only two years after his wedding, it became the anniversary of when his wife was infected and became one of them. Zach had been forced to shoot his own wife in the head to end her suffering. Abby couldn’t imagine doing that to someone she loved and hoped that she would never have to. To this day, Zach still kept his wife’s wedding ring on his dog tag chain around his neck.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Abby said, looking down at her hands in her lap.
“Don’t apologize, Bug. You did nothing wrong,” said Zach. ‘Bug’ was his nickname for Abby, ever since the first day he met her.
“Can I see her picture again?” Abby asked. Zach opened the velcro pocket on his shoulder and pulled out a folded-up photograph. He handed it to Abby, who took it in an almost reverential way. It was a picture of Zach with his wife on the day of their wedding. She wore a gorgeous, flowing white dress, and Zach looked very handsome in his Marine Corps dress blue uniform, his medals shining brightly. It wasn’t a professional picture, and it looked like a friend had captured this moment with a phone camera. Zach had one arm around his wife’s waist, holding her close, and was touching her nose with his right index finger. They were both smiling as they wordlessly shared an inside joke. They looked so happy. The picture was dated July 6th, 2014. It was just four years old.
“She’s so beautiful,” Abby said, still looking at the photograph.
Zach nodded and said, “You should have been there, that picture doesn’t even do her justice. When she walked through those church doors, my heart stopped beating for just a moment. She literally took my breath away. I told the preacher, ‘I can’t believe I’m about to marry that angel.’ I never could have imagined how it would all end.”
His voice trailed off, and he brought his left hand, curled up into a fist, up to his lips and softly bit his knuckle, a nervous habit of his that Abby had noticed a while ago. She got on her knees in her seat, leaned over, and kissed Zach on his cheek. “She must have known how lucky she was to have you,” Abby said, smiling. Zach managed a half-smile, but didn’t reply. Abby carefully slid the photograph back into his shoulder pocket, mussed up his hair, then sat back down.
“I thought that I’m the one who does that to your hair,” Zach said with a smile, smoothing his hair back out.
Abby laughed and said, “Not today.” She then leaned back in her seat and put her feet up on the dash once again and hummed a tune.
It was early in the afternoon, and the sun was still shining bright and hot in the clear blue summer sky when Zach and Abby returned to the hiding spot for their truck. It was a clever trick, in which Zach had crafted a kind of lean-to shelter inside a large pile of rubble using wooden boards and sheet metal, a space just large enough for the truck to pull into. The swinging door had broken planks and hay secured to the outside using survival cord, so that to the casual passerby it looked merely like the remains of the barn it once was.
Their home was a small cottage in the woods nearby, only about a mile from their truck. They trudged slowly through the trees, tired from a long day of scavenging and eager to get some rest. Rays of sunlight poked through the branches of the white oak trees around them, bestowing the area with tiny golden pillars that held up the green roof of leaves above them. Nearby, a Northern Cardinal alighted upon a branch that was not too high off the ground. He preened his feathers for a moment, and then cocked his head up as he heard something approach. Why, it was humans! Two of them! The bird did not see many humans these days, so to see two of them together was a rare treat. He flapped his wings a bit and then called out a friendly ‘hello’.
Abby heard a bird call nearby, so she turned to look for it. After a moment of scanning the branches, she finally saw the small, red bird with a black neck and face staring at her. She did not see very many birds these days, so to see such a pretty one was a rare treat. She gave a faint smile and lightly waved her fingers at the bird.
The Northern Cardinal was delighted that the human responded! He called out again, a little louder this time.
“Hey, look,” Abby said with a quiet chuckle, tapping Zach on the arm to get his attention. Zach stopped and followed Abby’s beaming gaze with his, almost immediately spotting the bird.
“Well, that’s as pretty a bird as I’ve ever seen,” Zach remarked, flashing his typical half-smile. He noticed Abby’s awestruck gaze and suddenly had an idea. He reached back to a pouch on his ruck and opened it, pulling out a small plastic bag filled with berries that he had collected. He took out two, handed them to Abby, and said, “See if you can feed him.”
“Okay,” Abby whispered. She carefully approached the bird with her hand out, holding the two berries in her palm. “Hey there, little guy,” she said.
The bird cocked his head to the side and watched the small human carefully. It did not look hostile and it even had food in its hand. It might be trying to trick him, but the bird decided that the prospect of two ripe berries was worth the risk. He flew towards the human and then landed softly on its open hand, making the human smile from ear to ear. He took a few bites out of one berry, getting some much needed sustenance, and then grabbed the other berry in his beak before flapping his wings and flying off, heading home to share his food. He was glad that he had met those humans. They were very nice.
“Did you see that?” Abby called to Zach as she turned back around, still grinning.
“I did. You’re like a bird whisperer,” Zach replied.
“Aw, he was so cute,” Abby said, glancing over her shoulder one more time, hoping to see the bird again, but he was gone for good.
When they arrived back home, Zach reached up to the roof and grabbed his iPod, which he had attached to his little solar charger and put up on the roof before leaving this morning. Once inside, he bolted the door with a solid wooden beam. They had never been attacked at their home, but complacency kills, as Zach always said.
Abby went to her room, which was nothing more than a curtained-off section of the cabin with a bed and a little chest for her clothes and other things. She dropped her backpack, unzipped it, and placed the People magazine on her bed for later reading. Then she brought the food and water over to the shelves next to the fireplace, and helped Zach in sorting everything. Once done with that, they then re-stuffed their bags with some food, water, and survival equipment and then staged these by their beds. These were their ‘bug-out bags’, so that they could always flee at a moment’s notice.
Zach had changed his long-sleeved shirt for a plain brown t-shirt, and with his arms revealed, you could now see his tattoos. On his right arm, from his elbow up to his shoulder, there was an image of a Marine in full combat gear, walking through the open gates of Heaven, and below this, wrapping around his forearm, was a verse
from the Bible: greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. On his left arm, just below the shoulder, was what looked like three slashes in his skin, with red, white, and blue blood streaming down his bicep. All three colors came together to form an American flag at his elbow. On the inside of his bicep were the words ‘Full Blooded American’, and on the outside of his forearm was a Latin proverb: ‘dum spiro, spero’, which means ‘while I breathe, I hope’. He had one more tattoo that was over his heart. Like on his left arm, it appeared to be a large hole in his chest, and where his heart should be was the emblem of the United States Marine Corps: the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.
When they had finished putting away everything they had scavenged from the city, Zach said to Abby, “How ‘bout a quick fighting lesson before we eat?”
“Yeah!” Abby exclaimed excitedly. She loved learning how to fight from Zach. He had done a lot of martial arts back in the ‘Before Times’, had a black belt in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program and was ranked as a Master in the International Krav Maga Federation, so he could teach her some cool stuff.
“Alright, let’s do it then,” Zach said. For the next hour, he gave Abby lessons on knife fighting and ground fighting, focusing on techniques for disentangling from an opponent on the ground and getting away. These may seem like some rather barbaric things to teach to a teenage girl, but the world was a dangerous place now, and everyone, even young girls, needed to know how to defend themselves.
Abby was a clever girl and could quickly memorize and perform the techniques that Zach taught her. At one point, Zach threw an attack at her which he had not yet taught her how to repel. Predictably, she failed to react well. But Zach showed her a counter maneuver, and within minutes she was performing it flawlessly. On top of being a quick learner, she had reflexes that would make a cat blush with jealousy. She was fast, her speed practically approaching the point of being supernatural.
His Name Was Zach Page 1