“Hey, Paul, how come you have a fake British accent?”
“Because I grew-up outside of St Louis. Do you think you are going insane? Sometimes I do.”
“Paul, I know I am going insane. Nobody can go through this and remain right in the head. I’ll see you after the trip. Anything on your shopping list I should look for?”
“If you run into Slim Jims, I would not mind one or two.”
“You got it, brother.” He really did grow up in Missouri.
I went down to ground level and fired up three of my old Whisperlight stoves that I had nested together to boil a big pot of water for coffee. I made sure the shotgun and Ruger were fully loaded. The bandoleer was at its max and I had maybe a dozen in a small sack Hammer had left for me. I went outside, waved to Derrick in the turret of Winnie Two, and sneaked over to the bridge. Everything wet was smoldering and the air smelled like earth and spring. It smelled like redemption. This day has got to be better. I scanned the road. The coast was clear but they were still there running aimlessly from car to car. Three, maybe four days and people were still in their cars waiting for the end. The old rule of thumb was generally a factor of three. Three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Unless they brought water or collected some yesterday, there were people dying right this minute. Death by dehydration without palliative measures, just fear, would not be pleasant. Who was out there; Doctors? Farmers? Carpenters? People who had skills we so desperately were going to need.
I walked back to the barn and checked on the water. I had brought a couple of lightweight camping French presses with me, and others had the same thought, although theirs were much nicer and from William Sonoma. Nice, but in the long term, I’ll take plastic over glass. We had enough varieties of ground coffee to last months, as well as an impressive assortment of instant, and at least two dozen different types of teas.
Liz was waiting and we just hugged and held each other for what seemed like a long time.
“Thank you for yesterday, I needed your support,” I whispered. We all had not washed in days, but Elizabeth smelled wonderful to me. This day was definitely looking up.
“I knew you would not let us, let Jim down. They were engaged.” Wow, I was actually feeling good enough to think, ‘was that a hint?’
“Be real careful today. I thought we would be well south by now, safe.”
“Hundreds of miles from here. How is everyone coping?”
“Yesterday freakedout a lot of us, okay all of us. People are getting antsy, causing some small talk about crowding into one Winnebago and making a run for it, using the Hummer to pull us through the mud. Obviously, not much is said to me, but Mary is head honcho of the W2, so she keeps all of us informed.”
”To be expected, I’m just as scared as they are.”
“Yes, John, but…You get to do something about it. Like this little trip, Roy should not be taking you! Not after yesterday, not after what you did at the gate!” Liz was getting angry and I had to diffuse the situation before others got involved.
“I’m ready. It’s a good team and I am going. Would you like some coffee?” Liz thought for a moment and decided that coffee was a good idea. Soon, everyone but Jim, was up and having breakfast.
Roy came in and everyone turned.
“Hammer is out by the Hummer getting us ready. John, Doc, Robert, and Allison, come over here and let’s review the route.” We gathered around one of our hay bale tables.
“Okay, Hammer drives, and I ride shotgun. Allison is behind me and John is behind Hammer. We head out the back. John will get to the gate and make sure it is closed behind us.” What is with gates and me? When did I become the gate guy?
“The mud should not be a problem. Turn left, after three miles we have another left, we will pass the right hand turn we take tomorrow, so it’s a bit of a recon. About two miles down this second left, we get to the store. It’s on our right. Samuel has informed us that the owner might still be there and a bit pissed off. His name is Joshua. We need to be polite and nice. The big problem is on the way back and not guiding a pack to the barn. Doc, I want you in the loft. Robert, you are in charge, do what you think is best.”
“No problem. If there is gunfire, we are going to attract attention from the main road. With you guys gone and Winnie One out of action, we could be trapped. This has got to be as silent as possible.”
“We will do our best, but we need that oil. Samuel says the road we are taking divides two of the larger farms in this area, only a couple of houses and not well used. We will see.”
Like Lucy, Allison was in Winnie One and I didn’t know her at all. She was about 5-6, long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was in great shape, good looking, in her early forties (maybe), and I have no idea what her connection was with the group. At breakfast, Mary said she was from Massachusetts and was a professional Mountain bike racer, the kind without the motor. She carried an AK-47 and had duct taped the ammo clips together for a quick reload. I have seen this in the movies and Hammer didn’t mention anything, so I guess it’s cool, it looked cool. She also had two small side arms with odd-looking handles attached to a custom-made chest holster. Allison was generally quiet but gave off an air of competency. Her face always had a slight scowl and was one of the few in our group that looked like they belonged. Someone I instinctively felt I could rely on when the shit hit the fan.
I went over and gave Liz a hug and kiss, perhaps the best and most important kiss of my life. I just wanted to stay there holding her. I could close my eyes and maybe this would keep the demons at bay. I could hear her sigh as we rocked back and forth. I am a bit old, but for the first time in my life, I actually thought about starting a family. I love Elizabeth. She is the one anchor in this horrible world that holds me in place, keeps me in touch with reality, no matter how much I don’t wish to be. I pulled away from her and looked into her deep blue eyes. We connected for a minute and then my Harlequin Romance moment was over. I then turned and walked out to talk with Hammer.
It took about ten minutes to sort our shit and get the hardtop off. Roy and Hammer were in their traditional black, I was in a faded green t-shirt that had a Darwin has a posse logo on front, and Allison wore a red t-shirt. At the time, it bothered me that she was the only one in red; maybe something to do with the Star Trek curse? Roy reminded us about the batteries, any kind of batteries, which were number three on the list behind motor oil, and ammunition. The Hummer handled the mud like a charm. With all the bitching about how large and unnecessary they were, thank you, God, for the Hummer. The day was sunny and with all the rain, it was going to be humid.
We came around the side of the barn and stopped. Oh, yes! No zombies; just a nice open field and muddy road. The gate turned out to be a piece of cake, Samuel had given Roy the key. We turned left and headed west. After about a quarter mile, I saw one come running out of some woods onto a field next to us. I tapped Roy on the shoulder and pointed.
“Let him follow us. Too close to the barn.”
By our next turn, we had seven. We saw our right hand turn for the next day and immediately picked up more. A pack of more than a dozen was now screaming in our direction ten to two hundred yard from us. We had a decision. Slow down and eliminate them, or try to lose them. Then I remembered Hammer was driving, so I cocked the shotgun and got ready. He then slowed down and let them get closer. Here we go. My first shot took down two. Allison put her AK on semi-automatic and with careful, patient, aiming, downed a quick three. Then, just as the pack started to group, something flew over my head. I just caught it from the corner of my eye. It looked like a rock, a baseball, or a...“Everyone down now!” Hammer roared and slammed on the gas.
Yep, Hammer Time. I was quickly hugging the seat and there was a not-so-loud boom. When I looked up, about six more were down. Oh that’s nice, a grenade. That won’t attract much attention. The last two I could see were seriously damaged and out of the game. From across the field to o
ur left, and from the road behind us, more came.
“We need to get the fuck out of here and now.” It was Roy.
“Go Hammer go, and I mean Go!”
Grenade? Was it just because he could? Maybe he had one handy? Seemed like a good idea? I am not going to live through this. THAT was fucking stupid! Now we are going a hundred miles an hour to a place we have never been before, a place that might be barricaded with someone inside who might just shoot first. Okay, Hammer, to you the grenade might make sense, but really fucking poor sense. So far, we could outdistance them, but we were only going a couple of miles. They would definitely have the ability to catch up.
The store was by itself on the right hand side of the road. It looked like a time rift back into the fifties. At least the signs in the windows were from that era, all very faded and wishing the ‘Best of luck with your hunt!’ My favorite one was of a good-looking young woodsy guy walking away with a shotgun over his shoulder, plaid jacket and denims rolled up at the bottom. He was turning to look at you and wave. The caption read, ‘Bringing home the bacon.’ It then went on to extol the virtues that only Remington ammunitions bring. I wondered; if he was really hunting pigs, why use a shotgun?
We pulled up front. Roy got out and went to the large glass door with a closed sign hanging in the middle of it. The door was in the center of an old one story, brick building. He knocked and called out, “Hello, anybody in there? Joshua? Joshua, you here?” several times. He tested the knob, locked. Roy looked around, “Everyone down.” Boom. He carefully pushed the door in and called again. With his machine gun at the ready, he stepped inside. After about fifteen seconds, he ducked back out and yelled for me to get my ass in gear.
I jumped out and entered the store. With the lights off, the vast accumulation of window advertisements and dust, limited the natural light. It made for a certain dusk feel. I saw where Roy was and covered his back.
“John, head back to the sporting goods section and grab all the ammo you can find. We are good on weapons. It’s the ammo we want.” I started to move to the back of the store clearing all the aisles.
“Roy, I think Hammer or somebody with a clue should do that.”
“Do you know what a bullet looks like?”
“Hey, look over there.” My eyes had adjusted to the dim light. In the back corner, I could see a series of stuffed animal heads and assumed that this area was the one I was looking for, and it was. A series of rifles and shotguns were locked in a rack. Four handguns were in a glass case that served as the counter for this section. Underneath the counter were two swinging heavy wooden doors padlocked together.
“Roy!” I yelled.
“Yeah.”
“I got to blow this padlock, so don’t freak out.”
“Go for it!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him exit the building carrying several cases of what I guessed were oil.
I cocked the shotgun, aimed at an angle I thought would take care of the lock and not ignite any ammo inside, and then fired. The shot more than worked. It blew the lock and hasp clear off. I just started to pile box after box into my knapsack. I didn’t care what I was taking, but did pay attention to shotgun shells and took all of them. I was just about done when I heard gunshots. I put the backpack on quickly, cocked the shotgun, and headed for the door. Roy was gathering some stuff near the front. As I passed the main register, I noticed a large plastic pickle jug loaded with beef jerky, and you guessed it, Slim Jims. I grabbed the jug.
Hammer and Allison were blazing away. Hammer had moved and was standing in the passenger seat engaging about a dozen scattered in front of us. By far, Allison had the most difficult assignment. She was covering the road we had just driven and she was busy with the original group, now at least twenty with more behind them. I threw my stuff in the back and went to help her. I got to one knee and started picking off the ones she missed. The first was a girl in her teens, dressed in what probably was a softball uniform top. I caught her just below the chin and tore most of her head off. As she spun, I could read her shirt, Comet Cleaners. She was number nine and her last name was Matheson. I picked off two more but missed the next. Luckily, Allison didn’t. I knew I was down to five shots; I simply didn’t have time to reload. The last one I hit was in the abdomen. He went down in a hard tumble. He wasn’t dead, but not really moving. It reminded me of the brother with the limp arms out on the road with the station wagon and the family we killed.
With all the commotion, I felt rather than heard the Hummer start. More shooting from the back gave me some clearance and a split second to pop in a couple of shells. My best guess would be around thirty on our ass, with seven or eight left in the first group. The second group was far enough behind to give us plenty of time to get away.
I stood. The head was too small a target for a shotgun. A good thorax shot, maybe get part of the spinal cord or the sacro-plexus nerves, and down they would go. It was as if you were changing them from fast zombie to traditional slow zombie. Aiming solely for the chest, I took down three fast. Only one got up and he was slow enough that a devastating head shot from Allison was nothing but an afterthought.
“Oh yeah! Now that’s what I am talking about!” She was pumped and I gave her a fist-bump as I jumped in. She was sweating, breathing heavy. Her face was flushed and she had a most amazing smile, the kind I thought I would never see again. Roy made a good choice.
Roy hit the gas and off we went. I almost didn’t feel the collision of the two zombies we had just mowed down. The road was straight and Roy made the best of it by putting the pedal to the metal. After about five minutes, he slowed down.
Roy came to a stop and jumped out with his binoculars. “I believe we have some decent distance. Damn, that was close. Hammer, do us all a favor and find us a way back.”
Hammer was hunched over, intently studying a folded map and what looked like satellite photos on an iPad.
“Not as detailed as I would like. In order to avoid Deerfield, we have to do a loop, but it’s big, easily twenty additional miles and we would have to pass through this small town. Connimicut, Never been there.”
We could now faintly hear them in the distance. It was an odd sound, something like a bad marriage, between a moan and a roar.
Roy grabbed the binoculars and stood. After about a minute or two, he leaned down and spoke with Hammer. I looked back. We had stopped with a view of an open valley that ended in trees about a half mile away. There was smoke off in the distance, lots of it. The day was partly cloudy and windy, the clouds made dark moving shadows on the land. At first, I thought the dark mass moving towards us was a cloud shadow, and yet again, I was wrong. As Roy and Hammer were having their conversation, the mass got closer and eventually you could make out distinct individuals. Hard to count, but my best guess would be several fucking hundred. Boy, did we attract a crowd. They did not just stay on the road, but fanned out on either side. The ones on the road moved faster than those in the weeds did. From above, it must have looked like an arrowhead heading straight for the dot that was us, and they were getting closer. Beyond the obvious, two things were bugging me. One, why the hell do they group like this? What calls them together? And, two, where the fuck did all these people come from?
I decided to interrupt the guys. “Okay, we go. Now is a good time to go.” I think the sound of my voice made them stop and look up.
Everything was thrown backwards as Roy pushed the Hummer to maximum. We had an open stretch of road and the horde began to vanish in the distance. Hammer studied the map and would occasionally yell some instructions to Roy. We slowed down to maybe forty as we came to a big tight curve, and suddenly, there they were. Three zombies were standing in the middle of the road, two men and a woman. There was no way we could avoid them without flipping, so we plowed right in. The first male hit the cattle guard and appeared to be sucked under the vehicle with a huge thump. The second was thrown onto the hood, rolled, and stuck to the windshield. This severely reduced Roy’s vision an
d he hit the woman at such an odd angle that the zombie was able to grab the passenger’s side view mirror. Roy slammed on the brakes in an attempt to knock the guy off the windshield. This slammed us all forward, but it worked. When he hit the gas, we all fell back and something slammed into the Hummer with a loud thud and the sound of wet cloth being torn.
Allison’s gasp was one of surprise rather than pain. When I turned, it was hard to make out what was happening. The zombie’s body had somehow been suspended across the passenger side at window level! The left arm was straight out in front of her, still holding the rear view mirror and she was parallel to the vehicle, just as if Superman was flying next to us! How could it be in that position? I focused on Allison and saw the answer, my brain froze, WTF? I took me more than a couple of long seconds to understand what had happened, and to comprehend the almost impossibility of what had happened.
Maybe it was the impact, or maybe she caught the tire. Who knows, but the rest of her leg was completely eviscerated from the right knee down; muscle, tibia, ankle, and foot, had been torn free. The sole exception was the fibula. The fibula is a long thin bone going from your knee to your ankle. The trauma had made it into a long thin needle. Her death grip on the mirror and the sudden stopping and starting motions of the Hummer had somehow tossed her onto the vehicle, and then things got really surreal. Somehow, the bone spike impaled Allison, entering behind the left jaw and exiting through the right cheek. She had turned herself around and was looking out the back when it happened. Allison never saw it coming. I didn’t see pulses of blood and hoped this meant the carotid was not severed. I looked to Hammer as he blasted the zombie.
“No.” When the zombie dropped, she almost took Allison out of the vehicle. The bone did slide out, but spun her head around, and here came the blood. I ripped off my t-shirt and tried to compress both wounds at once. Allison started choking and in between desperate breaths, she would spit out blood, all over me. She was quiet. I think shock was overriding pain.
Brutal Planet: A Zombie Novel Page 19