Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky?

by Merritt, R. S.

  We gathered around the map that was spread out on the kitchen table. The house we were in was on a street that looked like it wrapped around and pretty much stayed in parallel with the large I-215 and I-515 roads leading from here to Vegas. We could drive along them tonight with a lot less danger of there being a main guard post. At this point, as close as we were to Las Vegas, we were going to start having to deal with the enemy. If we found some who spoke English we hoped to be able to find out where prisoners were being kept.

  My guess was they had just blocked off some rooms in one of the hotels. Maybe even blocked off a whole wing. Be easy enough to keep the prisoners under watch that way. With all of the security cameras in your typical Vegas high rise they could probably station guards to watch virtually without expending too much manpower. The hotel rooms would also lend themselves well to the future occupation these young women had been kidnapped for. Add another reason to the list of why we were doing this.

  We worked out who would drive and who would sit where and what streets we planned to take. We talked through rules of engagement and made sure Catori and Marg understood we did not go to guns until it was a last resort. We watched behind the house for a while and once sure no Zombies were wandering around back there we let Daisy out on a long leash to do her business. You think having a dog is tough under normal circumstances try doing it during the middle of a Zombie apocalypse. Letting the dog out to go whiz was a life or death adventure for the dog. Daisy refused to poop or pee inside the house though. At least not on purpose. We’d discovered way too often that when scared she did tend to pee no matter where she was or whose lap she was sitting in.

  Daisy would be riding in the back of the truck with Reeves, myself and Marg. Catori was still milking that slightly broken wrist from my driving into that hidden crevice in the desert. In the back, we had long pieces of wood for the Zombies trying to get to us to shove them away from the truck. Following that, we had our personal hand weapons. If it got past that and we had to go to the guns we probably would be at a point where noise discipline did not matter a whole lot. Plans made, we all tried to get some rest, knowing we had a long night ahead of us.

  Entry 22: Ricochet

  When Ann shook me awake it was already dark. It had been fairly dark in the house anyway with the blankets on the windows and the curtains drawn but the light that had leaked in was gone. Someone had busted a chem light and thrown it on the table so it did give us that eerie green glow to go off of. We’d decided early on a little bit of light was better than making mucho noise by tripping around in the dark trying to get your crap together. We’d snagged enough of the chem lights to keep us glowing every night for a few months so cracking them open was no big deal.

  I sat up as Ann handed me a bottled water and a pack of cheese crackers. This place was not going to get five stars from me on trip advisor when they served up this kind of breakfast. I said thanks to Ann and proceeded to wolf down the crackers and guzzle the water. If it was already dark then that meant we needed to get rolling soon. When I had finished the snack, I stood up and went upstairs to find the bathroom we had designated for use during the stay. We all hoped it would be a brief stay and had based the bathroom selection on that hope. It already stank in there but since all I needed to take care of at the moment revolved around going number one I just held my breath and dealt with it. Once you got past number one in today’s world life really sucked. I tried to avoid fiber.

  Morning necessities taken care of I wandered over to the room where we had a guard stationed. Catori was currently the lucky one sitting in the corner staring out the window. I walked over and asked him if he had seen anything interesting. He pointed out some more fires off in the distance. At least one of them seemed pretty substantial. Evidently turning on the power after it had been off for a couple of years yielded some dangerous results. The only other thing of note was that there were still a couple of Zombies hanging out by our truck. The others had wandered off at some point.

  I let Catori know that he could probably hang out up here for another ten minutes then go ahead and meet us downstairs. Based on his feedback we should be good to go ahead and make for the truck and get moving. I headed back down the stairs to see how everything was progressing. Ann had taken it upon herself to get everything organized. All the supplies we had carried into the house were neatly stacked by the front door. All the food stuffs, matches, drinks, and bedding we had rounded up from this house were stacked behind it. The idea being if we had to leave before having time to make a second trip we had prioritized the stuff we carried out on the first trip. Blankets and kitchen knives were great but not at the expense of a box of ammo.

  It looked like everything was ready to go. Catori came down the stairs and hoisted up his pack and a can of ammo from the pile of stuff we needed to carry to the truck. We thought there was three Zombies hanging out in the darkness between us and the truck. With any luck, they would already be curled up in a pile together sleeping. If we could just ignore them that would be best. If we needed to kill them while they were sprawled out asleep that was much better than killing them while they were screaming and running straight at us. Ginny, Reeves and I kept our hands free from any supplies so we could carry multiple weapons out to the truck to take care of any threats. Taking care of them quietly was critical. It was going to be bad enough when we had to crank the truck.

  I lead the way out the door with Ginny and Reeves moving to my left and right once we got out of the door and had some room to spread out. We moved towards the truck, trying to spot the three Zombies we knew had been hanging around out here until at least an hour or so ago. We made it all the way to the truck without spotting them. Ginny poked me in the back and pointed at the ground.

  A bare blue foot was sticking out from under the truck. The damn Zombies had decided to take a nap under the truck. Taking them out was not going to be super easy with them under there. We couldn’t leave them there though. They were bound to notice when we started the truck to get out of here. Not only were they bound to notice, I assumed they would be real vocal about it.

  I squatted down and carefully shined a light under the truck. Based on all the legs and heads and arms sticking every which way it looked like all three of them had worked their way under the truck. I had no idea how we were going to be able to take them out quietly. The only plan popping in my head was to have someone start the truck and roll it backwards quickly while the rest of us charged in and finished off the Zombies before they could fully wake up. We could try and go ahead and get all the supplies loaded first if we could do that without waking them up. What would have made them decide the hard cement driveway underneath the truck was the best place to catch some shut eye anyway?

  We went quietly back to the house and told everyone the situation. I asked for suggestions.

  “Why don’t we find another truck?” Marg asked.

  That actually sounded like a great idea to me. Ginny was quick to strike it down though.

  “Remember what a pain it was getting this one to start? We’d have to take the battery out and find another truck that runs on diesel the battery would fit in and then hope the other truck would start up. As much as it is going to suck I think Steve’s plan may be the only option. We load everything up quietly, hit reverse and try to kill the ones under the truck before they can make too much noise. Or, we could just drive off really fast and let them scream their heads off. We’re going to wake up other ones when we turn the truck on anyway.”

  Crap. Very valid points. I hadn’t even considered the option of just driving away and leaving them laying there. Probably a lot smarter than trying to swoop in and kill them while they were running around screaming. We would have to get the truck loaded without disturbing them and then take off fast. I thought about driving over them when we backed up but didn’t want to get a tire stuck in a ribcage or have one go flat if we hit a bone the wrong way. We’d already had a tire spinout inside of a Zombie one time. That had b
een gross and almost gotten us killed since while we were spinning the tire and moving towards a ditch the rest of the Zombies had been coming at us hard.

  We discussed for a few more minutes and we all decided the safest bet was probably to just load up the truck and try to get the hell out of here as quickly as possible. Left unsaid, the safest bet was to throw our gear over our shoulders and start walking. We could always try and find another ride later on. One of the things we had in the current gear in the pickup was one of those windup battery chargers you could use for starting cars. Now that all the batteries were pretty much dead in all of the cars you had to have it. About half the cars still wouldn’t start but it was a lot better than nothing.

  I really hoped we weren’t making a huge mistake because none of us wanted to walk. For Catori and Marg it was a matter of bringing it to the enemy fast to try and find their loved ones. For the rest of us, it was straight up just being sick of walking. I think in the back of our heads we all expected to be caught and killed at some point anyway so why bother walking there.

  We quietly loaded up the truck. We had to hush Daisy several times since she couldn’t seem to figure out why we were all getting in a truck with a bunch of Zombies laying underneath it. I was carrying out a box of canned food to load on the truck. The bottom of the box fell out. All the cans hit the sidewalk and each other. It was stupid loud. All of us froze. Maybe all the Zombies had gone deaf? They had not. While we had frozen the trio underneath the truck had wormed their way out like cockroaches scattering when the light comes on. They were up and on us in no time.

  All of us had been carrying crap so we could get it in the truck and get out of here as quickly as possible. In hindsight, we should have had a couple of people standing around guarding us. We’d had guards and lookouts for every part of the last twenty-four hours and then the time when we were all vulnerable we’d forgotten to do it. Since everyone now had to fight we all started dropping what we were carrying and struggling to bring our weapons into play. In my case, I just had to drop a mostly empty box on the ground since I’d already gotten rid of most of the load. We better not die because I’d overstuffed the damn box with cans of baked beans.

  I ran forward to help. I had my machete out and was ready to do some damage. I ran through the weed filled garden in front of the house and hopped over the little concrete barrier in front of the driveway. I was chopping at a Zombie who had Marg down on the ground. The Zombie had its teeth worrying away at Marg’s pants leg while Marg was kicking it in the head with his other foot. I embedded the machete in the Zombies skull and it jolted around some but then stopped moving. Blood and gunk seeped out of the things head. My machete was not coming out. I left it in the dead things head, jumped over Marg, who was struggling to his feet and ran towards where Reeves was rolling around on the ground with the other two Zombies.

  Ginny and Ann ran over to help while Catori was busy pulling himself off the ground where another Zombie had come out of nowhere and taken him down by his legs. This was turning into a cluster. I told Ann to go start the truck and then I jumped into the fight. Literally, I had a long kitchen knife in my hand and I threw myself bodily on top of the larger Zombie who was clawing away at Reeves. I had aimed to land on its back and as soon as I hit I reached up and grabbed the thing by its long greasy hair and pulled hard to expose the neck. I slammed the knife into its throat a few times then got up off the ground as it bled out and kicked around in circles. Still trying to get at me after all that.

  Reeves had taken care of the other Zombie by then and he helped me up. He said thanks and nodded towards the truck where everyone else was getting comfortable. The truck was running nice and quiet which was a very good thing. I heard screams and moans and the sounds of curious Zombies coming to check out all the ruckus. That was not good. Reeves and I ran over to the truck and jumped in. Dodging all the junk we’d managed to drop on the ground during the brief skirmish. Hopefully, all the important stuff had made it into the truck. No time to check right now.

  I opened the sliding glass window as Ann reversed us down the driveway fast enough to shove my whole head in painfully through the slider. She looked back at me and sighed. Ginny made a grossed-out expression and handed me a little packet of wet wipes and motioned me to go get back in the bed of the truck where I belonged. I sat down and ran a wet wipe over my face. It came away covered with blood and gore. I looked down at my clothes and they echoed that story. I was going to need a lot more wet wipes.

  Entry 23: Bat out of Hell

  Ann wasn’t playing. She whipped us out of the driveway. I thought we were going to flip when she spun the wheel to face us in the correct direction for her next sphincter tightening maneuver. Everyone in the back had almost flown out already with the first reverse spin. All the supplies we’d thrown in the back were scattered all over the place. Bullets were rolling around in the bed of the truck along with random cans and bags of food and loose water bottles.

  The bed was already packed with gas canisters and other crap. None of which was fun to sit on in the best of times. These were not the best of times. Instead of driving up the street Ann drove us through the yard of the house on the other side of the street. The yard that had a garden in it with a concrete border around it and a decent sized hedge. Did Ann care about those of us in the back who were thrown all over the place and whipped with hedges as she kangarooed our asses through that yard? I was wondering if she was drunk or had screwed up her medication.

  Then I noticed all the movement in the middle of the street and realized we had attracted enough Zombies to have made this little off road exercise a necessity. They were turning now to attack us in the yard but thanks to Ann’s complete disregard for the welfare of everyone in the bed of the truck we were already out of their reach. We bounced through the next yard then she turned down a driveway and took us out on the actual paved street. Doing all of this without headlights on was a lot like playing Russian roulette with a musket. It was a lot of work and at some point, you were going to lose.

  Luckily, Ann had no idea how to load a musket because she managed to pull off some driving that would have impressed both Bo and Luke Duke. It almost made it better for the rest of us that it was dark because we didn’t really notice all the extremely close misses. Ann told me later that she had just floored it and then turned the wheel away from anything that looked like it would break the truck if we ran into it.

  Marg looked up from the bed of the truck and asked if I had a bandana or anything. He had bounced his face off of the edge of the truck and gashed his forehead. Cutting your forehead makes it bleed like a bitch and all the blood runs down into your eyes. A knife fighting trick is to slash your opponent’s forehead so the blood runs down into their eyes. Reeves was full of little combat trivia like that but mostly my knife fights consisted of me screaming like crazy and blindly thrusting a knife into a Zombie while my eyes were closed. If I had to face a live human with a knife then I would pull out my pistol. Especially if it was someone who knew what the hell they were doing.

  The plan had been to drive up the Horizon Ridge Parkway until we were due south of the airport then we would do a quick consult and figure out next steps based on where we were. Once we got there we would be close enough to downtown that the chances of running into a Korean patrol were going to be a lot higher. I had never realized the suburbs around Las Vegas were so extensive. The moon was out so we could see we were driving past community after community. We’d left the Zombies behind and continued down the Parkway with the headlights off with no issues.

  As we continued driving we passed one neighborhood where there were a couple of houses on fire. If the Koreans kept turning on power to different sections of town at some point they were going to spark a fire that would take them all out. They could not even do anything to stop the spread of the fire since Zombies would show up and attack as soon as they tried. I wasn’t sure I understood why they would bother turning it on in areas they did not control
. They must be planning to march through these areas and clean out all the Zombies then settle here. That made sense as they had located a nice source of clean water and electricity.

  They would just need to deal with the few million Zombies who were here between the original residents of Clark County and all the tourists who’d been tearing up sin city when they became the newest members of the Blue Man Group. That would be a pretty substantial clean-up effort but in the end the Koreans would have a pretty nice area to live. The large lakes surrounding them would provide for irrigation to grow crops. The inhospitable desert would keep the hundreds of millions of other Zombies from making it over here too soon. Once you’ve got shelter, water, food and a strong army you’re looking pretty good.

  The only thing they were evidently short on was women. I wanted to deprive them of all the women and girls they had captured. If we could do that it would strike at their morale and hand us a whole bunch of hands to help destroy the former captors. I couldn’t imagine the women would be taking kindly to being kidnapped to be turned into brood mares. We just needed to figure out where they were being kept and come up with a plan to free them. We needed to do that without being caught and killed ourselves. I wanted to avoid the end result of this being us dead and the Koreans thanking us for bringing them two more brood mares. Not that I thought for a second that either Ann or Ginny would go easy or submit once taken. I also was very careful never to say the words ‘brood mare’ out loud.