Zournal (Book 2): Cruising The 'Poc

by R. S. Merritt

  The plan was to make our way parallel with the interstate but about fifty yards into the woods to avoid detection by the Zombies. We’d look for billboards and move in to climb the ones with ladders built into them to scout out the road and see if we could see the Hearse or anything to give us a clue on their whereabouts. We worked out a system of communicating on the Walkies, for when we sent someone to scout the road, using mostly just presses and depresses of the talk button to send a quick burst of static. Basically, one click meant, I see something come over to where I am. Two clicks meant I need help. Three clicks meant everyone turn and run like hell. We decided if we got split up somehow we would meet underneath the overpass where I-4 splits to go to I-95.

  Planning completed we started walking through the humidity and rising heat of a spring day in Florida. I felt like I had not slept in days. My body hurt from sleeping on the ground. My chest burned and my wrist ached. I was lugging around a backpack that seemed to get heavier everyday while the straps seemed to provide less and less padding. The only advantage to the sweltering humidity was that as the temperature went up, Ann’s exposed skin quantity increased. It made the hike a lot more interesting for me.

  The first problem became pretty obvious as we moved closer to the interstate. It was pretty much impossible for us to figure out if we were close to the road or not. We also couldn’t really see billboards or any of that through the canopy of the trees above us. If we did break out into a field or something we would not have cover and be exposed to any Zombies wandering by who happened to look in our direction. I didn’t know if they were able to tell from a distance that we were humans versus Zombies but I didn’t really feel like experimenting.

  We kept stumbling forward. Reeves and Ginny were in the lead as they both were better at moving through the woods than the rest of us. They were responsible for leading the way and looking for any Zombies that may be wandering through the woods. The idea would be to see them before they saw us and quietly take care of them.

  Ann and Thomas were next in line. Thomas had his baseball bat in his good arm. His other arm was encased in plaster and secured to his body with a sling Ann had found at the CVS. Sine we had found out Chrissie had medical training we had let her take a look at it as well but she mostly had theoretical knowledge, she hadn’t done a residency or anything yet. Ann was busy making sure Thomas was safe and could move through the woods with the one arm. Chrissie followed closely behind the two of them. She was carrying a pack and had a ski pole she was hiking with that she had found somewhere. If attacked she basically planned on pushing the Zombie away with the pole and getting out of the way so one of us could take care of dispatching it.

  I was on rear guard. My job was to watch everyone and make sure everybody was Ok and neutralize any threats that may try to sneak up on us from behind. It was pretty much the scariest job in the lineup as I did not have anyone watching my back. We all had our radios out. For walking through the woods, we went with a modified version of the other signaling we had developed. One click was keep going, two clicks was come help me, and three clicks was run away real fast. I really wish we could find like those throat mics the Secret Service wore so we could just whisper into our sleeves. Texting would be cool too.

  One click hit everyone’s radios. We kept moving forward until we came to where Ginny and Reeves were standing in a small opening looking up through the trees. Walking over to them I looked up and saw the corner of a billboard. It looked like one of the Ron Jon surf shop billboards. I looked at Reeves and he nodded and signaled everyone to wait here, then he headed out. We sat there and waited for a while in silence. Eventually Reeves came back out of the woods, he shook his head in the negative and started to move off to continue up the road. I tapped him on the shoulder.

  “What did you see?” I whispered.

  “Climbed up as high as I could without making myself visible. Moved slow and kept myself as hidden from the road as I could. I did not see the hearse or anything. I did see a bunch of Zombies wandering around aimlessly. I also had to kill one on the way to the Billboard that was just standing in the weeds, staring at the ground, we need to be really careful. I’m going to head us up to the next southbound billboard to take another look, we’ll need to move slow and maybe go deeper into the woods to keep from attracting their attention.”

  I nodded and we moved out. Reeves led us a little deeper into the woods and blazed a path for the rest of us. There were a few times we were double clicked over the radio so we knew to stop. Each time it was only a few minutes until we received another click to keep moving. I made sure to basically spin in a circle every minute or so and do a complete scan of the woods around me. Looking for any threats.

  We repeated the process for three more billboards that Ginny and Reeves selected. It was starting to get late into the afternoon at this point. Everyone was approaching new levels of misery. Ann had been systematically removing any clothing which wasn’t necessary for protection of her most sensitive areas and was still muttering under her breath about how freakin miserable it was. We had all liberally slathered on bug spray which seemed to be working. Or maybe there just wasn’t many bugs hanging out at the moment. Ann’s ability to cut parts of her clothing off with scissors while walking and the lack of bugs were about the only two things I was feeling grateful for.

  We continued moving, Reeves came back from yet another Billboard and shook his head no. He started to move out and I tapped his shoulder and moved him to the side.

  “It’s starting to get late Reeves; we need to think about how long we keep doing this for.”

  Reeves looked at me, “I’m not stopping. Those kids deserve better. I’m not stopping until I know they’re safe. If you guys need to get headed North that is fine but I’m not doing it. I can’t.”

  I looked back at him, “No worries, let’s check a few more and call it a day and then try to figure out our next steps.”

  Reeves moved out and before too long we were all standing around a tree waiting on him again. The radio clicked twice. That was the come help me signal. We started moving through the underbrush in the direction Reeves had gone. I moved to cover the front now with Ann behind me, followed by Chrissie and Thomas with Ginny pulling rear guard. As we moved forward I began to see parts of the billboard peeking through the foliage.

  The billboard was a funny one, Your Wife Is Hot, Better call the AC repairman, we could see Reeves was all the way at the top laying on the platform. His climbing had excited a handful of Zombies who had wandered over to see how this feat was being performed. The had not started moaning and freaking out about it yet. Probably because they could no longer see him since he was laying on the platform. I made it five Zombies standing around at the base of the sign.

  We need to take them out fast and hard. That was going to be difficult with just three of us, easy if we used guns, hard to do it with two baseball bats and a dull sword. There was a lot of cleared space around the base of the sign as well so sneaking up on them was not going to be super easy. A cross bow would be cool. Or a dart gun. We had neither of those things or the slightest idea of how to use them if we did. Couldn’t just search YouTube really quick for instructional how to kill zombies quietly videos. I really missed the internet.

  I had nothing. I looked at Ginny and Ann. They didn’t seem to have any ideas either. Ann was looking hot in her outfit she had whipped up for herself, which would have been useful in distracting a group of construction workers but probably not so great at distracting a bunch of Zombies. I saw Reeves peeking over the billboard at us. The problem was if he started coming down to help us that was going to start up the moans and we’d have ten times the current number of Zombies running rampant in this little clearing in about five minutes. We needed a way to distract the Zombies and get them to leave without having them make any noise or get suspicious.

  We heard a clump in the weeds and bushes on the other side of the clearing. The Zombies by the base of the sign started shuffl
ing towards the noise. Another loud noise came from that general area. Now all of the Zombies were wandering into those weeds trying to see what was going on over there. A minute later only one Zombie was still visible. It was an elderly looking woman who was still looking up at the billboard. She was wearing a bloody shift, with large red stains covering the front of the shift and the rest of it covered in dirt and weeds. The veins protruding from her body looked like she had blackish-blue wires running on the outside of her skin. She was breathing heavy and staring up.

  I raised my sword and moved towards her as quietly as I could go. I felt Ann moving on my right and Ginny on my left. I knew they would cover if the Zombie took off in a different direction or if I messed up the kill. When I had moved within range I swung the sword up over my head and straight down as hard as I could into the top of the Zombies head. There was a loud squishy noise, like a grotesque watermelon being splattered with a giant mallet at some kind of demonic Gallagher show. We were not wearing ponchos or anything so all three of us got a nice coating of Zombie nastiness.

  The body dropped to the ground and I worked my sword out. I looked up to signal Reeves to come down and saw he was already about halfway down. He was missing his shoes. That explained the loud noises in the weeds on the opposite side of us. He got to the ground and mouthed, “I think I saw them.”

  We all moved quickly into the underbrush and away from the Zombies on the other side of the clearing. When we had gone about sixty yards into the woods and felt like we were at a safe distance we all gathered together around Reeves. He was standing on one foot trying to pull the briars and random weeds out of his sock. I lightly cleared my throat and he looked up.

  “I think I saw the Hearse, about three hundred yards down the road right as it starts to curve to the right I saw a pileup of cars and right in front of it looks like a limo or a hearse laying on its side.” Reeves finished screwing with one sock and moved to another. What he hadn’t said out loud is that the Hearse had probably been flipped over by a large mob of the Zombies. That did not bode well for the inhabitants. We had been walking forever at this point, but driving this far should not have taken very long at all.

  Looking a bit closer at Reeves I could tell from his face that he was messing with his socks so he did not have to look at us. Everyone in that hearse was probably dead.

  Reeves continued, “I saw some Zombies standing around it. I think we need to go check it out up close and see if any of them made it.”

  Without waiting for anyone to concur with him, seemingly not actually caring if anyone agreed with him, Reeves took off in his socks towards where he had seen the hearse laying on its side. We fell into step behind him. Carefully searching the woods around us for Zombies. It got marshy in the woods where we were walking which forced us to move closer to the road and move a lot slower. It felt like the ground may pull off my boots every step I took in the muck. In addition to Zombies, we were all looking around for snakes and gators as well. I walked right into a huge spider web with a corresponding huge spider on it. I beat the living crap out of my face smooshing the nasty thing.

  Once everyone had verified what the hell I was doing smacking myself in the face that seemed to amuse them all. Especially Ann and Ginny who kept reenacting their favorite parts of me hitting myself in the face. The mood darkened as we got close to the hearse. We all knew what we were probably going to find. I moved forward up the line and whispered to each person to stay in the tree line and that Reeves and I would go check it out. I was hurrying as I did not want Reeves to go out there by himself.

  By the time I got to the tree line and pushed my way through he was already about halfway up the slightly sloped area to where the hearse was laying on its side. Reeves was taking a circuitous route and knocking Zombies out as he went. He would approach them from behind and basically bash their heads in with his bat then hide quietly for a minute while Zombies who heard the noise settled back down. There was only a single Zombie who was still in between Reeves and the hearse. This one was staring right at where he was and moving forward to investigate.

  I whistled.

  The Zombie turned in my direction, it got out the beginning of a moan before Reeves took it out. Reeves then hoisted himself up onto the side of the hearse. I jogged over to where he was at. Looking on the ground I saw John was laying there by the front door, missing most of the skin from his forehead and some of his stomach and arms appeared to have been eaten as well.

  I looked up at Reeves, he was leaning over the passenger door looking in. He looked down at me and shook his head then dropped to the ground. We both started walking towards the back door. The hatch looked like at least one set of the hinges on it had been broken when it landed and it was hanging askew on the back of the hearse by the other hinges.

  We paused and listened before trying to look inside. We heard the sounds of something being eaten inside the hearse. I shook my head at Reeves, “Let’s get out of here. This is FUBAR.” I whispered at him. He had tears in his eyes.

  He reached for the hatch and I reached out and helped him pry it up. Once we had it pried up about a foot a small hand snaked out and grabbed Reeves around the ankle. The hand was covered in protruding veins and the skin was a bluish pink. The Minnie Mouse watch on the wrist told me this was Carly. Carl had a SpongeBob watch.

  Carly was pulling herself out though the gap between the hatch and the road. She had no concern for the skin she was leaving on the concrete and the hatch as she desperately tried to attach Reeves, who was actually in a good bit of danger since he was just wearing socks and did not appear capable of moving. I broke her arm with a swing of the sword. Then I moved the sword back up and prepared to bring it down on her little head. I saw she still had the braids in her hair that Ginny had been helping her with a few days ago. Her ‘Princess’ braids. My eyes welled up, Reeves moved to block me from swinging and I went ahead and swung, bashing into the back of her head and smashing her face against the road. I did it one more time and the girl stopped moving.

  I pulled my phone out and ducked down to shine it in the back of the hearse. I could make out the bodies in the back and it looked like everyone else was accounted for. It was hard to tell as most of their faces had been chewed off. Including the face of her twin brother. Reeves lay down and looked in as well, I clicked the light off quickly.

  We both stood up. I started walking back towards the tree line. Reeves had walked around to the other side of the hearse. I turned around and went back to see what he was doing. He stood over the body of John. He had taken out his M-16 and verified he had a full clip.

  “Stupid fuck.” He announced to the world and then with his tears streaming down his face and a look of pure rage he held the trigger down on full auto. He ran through the whole clip. Completely obliterating Johns head. There was nothing left but bone fragments and grey gunky brain goo at the top of Johns neck. As soon as the clip had been used up and the shooting completed I could hear the Zombies yelling and coming for us. Reeves calmly walked back around to the end of the hearse where we had left Carly’s body on the road.

  Reeves stood over Carly’s body, popped in another clip, and started taking single shots at the Zombies who were coming for us. They were coming in ones or twos right now but judging by the volume of the screams there would be a lot more soon. Way more than we could handle. I went ahead and pulled out my pistol, not worried about noise discipline anymore I yelled at Reeves, “C’mon, let’s get out of here before they get here. We need to get in the woods and get quiet!”

  Reeves ignored me. He looked like he was in a killing fog. He was going to stand there and avenge the twins, sacrifice himself for his failure to protect them. More Zombies came streaming towards us. I hit the Walkie talk button, “Get out of here, I’ll get Reeves out, everyone fall back to somewhere safe and wait for us.”

  I shoved the Walkie back in my pocket and yelled at Reeves, “This is an order, you’re going to get us all killed!”

  R
eeves looked at me, “Everything is shit. Everybody is dying. We’re walking dead man. Let’s go ahead and get it over. Go out like bad asses, our dead bodies in a pile of spent brass.”

  Reeves was grinning. He had a huge smile on his face and tears coming out of his eyes. He paused to eject his used clip and put in another one. I tased him.

  I’d never tased anybody before so wasn’t really sure what to expect. It was pretty anticlimactic. He jolted around a couple of times then fell to the ground. I leaned his M-16 against the back of the hearse, bent over and threw him over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry. I then tried to grab his M-16, almost fell over, heard how close the screams were and said screw it and started running as hard as I could for the wood line. Reeves was laid out over my shoulders, I was tripping over the sword I had shoved through my belt, and with my right-hand I was holding Reeves up and simultaneously trying to hold my pistol.

  The Zombies were right behind us. It was over. I got ready to drop Reeves, spin and die shooting. I heard someone yelling for me to keep running. I think they may have called me a dumbass. I looked to the side of the road and saw Ann standing on top of a big black SUV that had been abandoned on the side of the road. She had her .22 rifle held up to her shoulder and looked like the calendar girl for a guns and ammo calendar shoot. I thought she became even more beautiful as she started laying down accurate covering fire.