by Chris Lowry
kept punching me, scrapes, cuts, bruises added to the ensemble.
Plus, I used to joke with my kids, I have a resting bitch face.
My normal look is pissed, even when I'm delighted.
They were always in a perpetual state of wonder growing up.
"What's wrong Dad?"
"Nothing. Why do you ask?"
"You look mad."
"I'm not mad, it's just my face."
Not the best way to go through life, to constantly look concerned and on the verge of an
anger management catastrophic breakdown, but such is luck.
I tried to mask it with jokes, and funny little songs.
Sometimes it worked.
But for little boys who just met an armed guy marching into town, I might have given me space
and some sideways eye too.
The store was locked.
The Boy used a universal key to gain entry by busting out the glass in the door.
We stood back to do a Z check in case anything inside was drawn by the noise, but there was nothing.
"Where is everyone?" Bem asked the kids.
I didn't expect an answer, or at least one that made sense, but Carl surprised me.
"Gone."
His tiny voice was solemn.
"I'll show you," he offered.
She shot a raised eyebrow in my direction. Should she go
I slid my eyes from the Boy to Tyler and back again.
"Go with her," I told the scout. "Nothing happens to her. To them."
I tried not to make it sound menacing.
I really tried to rein in the threat in the tone.
But he shivered and nodded.
Quickly.
"Yes Sir."
Capital S.
"You're with me," I told the Boy before he could argue.
Bem made a noise in her throat, and I thought she was going to say she could take care of herself,
but she held it in.
It made sense for her to have back up if we split up, and I did not like us splitting up.
If Tyler said the town was a population of two, then I was less worried.
A little less.
Not much.
I made sure the Boy and I hurried as we gathered supplies while Bem, Tyler and the two kids slipped back through the glass
and onto Main street.
The inside of the store was pristine, if Spartan in choice.
There were about a dozen of every food item, and the choices were limited. Mac n Cheese, Beans, Rice, Chili, Corn.
Still we were able to gather about a week's worth of meals, if we stretched it.
I was surprised there wasn't more, but it looked as if the clerk or owner had a big run on food, and just organized the remaining
items before disappearing.
Or going Z.
"We'll check the houses too," I told the Boy.
He nodded and shouldered the heavier pack.
I smiled and took it from him.
"I got it," he tried to argue.
"I know you do."
But I took it from him and slid my arms through the straps.
Then I handed him a peanut candy bar that had been hidden behind the register.
"Save half for your sister."
His grin made me warm inside, and he smelled the wrapper, vacuum sealed for freshness.
We made one more look around the store to see if we missed anything, and then made our way to the
first house.
The front door was open.
The same with the kitchen cabinets.
"Rick and Carl?" said the Boy.
I nodded.
It was probably how to the two stayed alive.
We checked for weapons and kit in the bedrooms, but came up empty. There was plenty there,
but nothing compact we could carry back to the truck.
Most households are built to stay where they are, and travel time in the new zombie world
was a minimalist paradise.
We still had a lot of daylight left and Kentucky was only a few hours away driving straight on the railroad.
"Leave it," I told him as he grabbed a comforter off the bed. "We'll find something when we stop
for the night."
He nodded, and we moved from house to house in silence.
The same story played out in each.
Open doors, empty pantries.
I'm glad the two little wild men had been able to stay alive, but it made
for a light haul on our supply run.
We had found a couple of knives, and ammo for guns we didn't have by the time we reached the trailers and met up with
Bem and Tyler.
That's when we found everyone else too.
CHAPTER TEN
"I see dead people," the Boy deadpanned.
The ground between the trailers was row after row of raised mounds, scrap board tombstones stuck haphazardly
into the dirt.
I counted ten in the first row, and five rows deep.
"Did you do this?" Bem asked Carl and Rick.
The oldest pointed.
A rotting corpse leaned against a sign, legs splayed in an open grave.
The top of its head was missing.
"Was that your Dad?"
They both shook their moppet tops.
"Shane," said Rick. "He's dead."
That was a fitting epitaph for Shane I think.
"He was bit," Carl explained.
I held my breath and walked over. A blood crusted pistol was between the skeletal legs of Shane.
He got bit and went out before he could go Z.
"How long ago?" I asked.
Trying to get a frame around how long they were alone. The corpse looked like months.
"He did this," Rick offered.
"Is this the whole town Dad?"
I shrugged.
Bem sat on the ground and reached for the little one's hands. Rick let her hold his, but Carl skittered away.
Who could blame him for trust issues.
"Let's check the trailers."
I pulled out a couple of pouches of food and handed it to Bem, then shot a look to Tyler
to watch over her.
The Boy and I searched for more food.
We found where the boys had been sleeping.
It was trashed.
The food was gone though, hence the house scavenging or maybe Shane had done some stockpiling
before he died.
There was none now though.
"Shane, you glorious bastard," I breathed when I opened the back bedroom door.
It had fifteen rifles, four pistols, ammo for all and a knife.
Whoever he had been, he was smart.
The guns had a long thin cable running through the trigger guards so the kids couldn't
get them, and the ammo was at the top of the closet.
"I'll flip you for who gets to search the body for the key," I joked with my son.
He ran a hand across the top of the mirror on the dresser and showed me a tiny piece of metal,
a victory smile plastered on his face.
"Kid's don't think to look high."
"You're a kid."
"Still am," he kept grinning and released the padlock.
I checked the action on a couple of hunting rifles, and matched ammunition to them. We loaded
them, and then did the same with pistols.
Back when gun control was a hot button issue, some proponents argued it was better to have it and not need it, than have the reverse be true.
I was indifferent at the time.
Growing up in the south meant guns were tools, no different than a hammer or screwdriver, just used for a purpose.
I wasn't in love with them, the way some folks were.
Since the Z though, better to have more than enough.
I adopted a SEAL philosophy I read somewhere. Two is one, one is none and peace through superior
firepower or something to that effect.
I handed a second rifle to the Boy, and a pistol. He slung the first across his shoulder and seated the other in his waistband.
"Holsters might be good next time."
"Beggars and choosers," I told him.
"Just wishing out loud."
We met the others back outside and I passed out weapons to Tyler and Bem.
She had Rick in her lap, and Carl was standing beside her, wiping pasta crumbs from his lips.
"They're coming with us," she told me.
Like I was going to leave two toddlers in the middle of a town.
It must be the face.
I tried on a smile, but the Boy shook his head.
"Give it up Dad," he grinned.
"Let's move out," I snorted.
Bem took her two new charges by the hand and led them toward the truck. The little blond haired
boy lasted longer than I thought he would before he asked to be carried. She picked him up, and perched him on
one hip as we went back to the railroad.
"I'm hungry," Carl said as Bem passed me the keys to unlock the truck.
I passed her my backpack of food as she settled in the backseat with the boys. Tyler jumped
in with them before I could object.
I don't know who growled louder, the Boy or me, but we let it pass as I gave him the keys.
"You drive," I told him and got a grin again.
He hopped behind the wheel, fired it up and we took off with a lurch that turned yells into giggles from the back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was a notorious traffic hater before the plague. I even adjusted my work hours just so I could avoid the most clogged and congested times of day. There was no easier way to piss me off than to schedule something that put me in the cross hairs of traffic. It was like building a bonfire at a gas station.
It might not blow up, but why take that chance?
Which is why I was in love with the railway car.
Truck.
The Boy locked in our speed at fifty miles an hour, slowing for curves and blind spots. I liked his foresight. He was being prepared in case we came up on something unexpected.
Tyler kept a rifle across his lap, ready, and Bem entertained the two little children in the back.
She teased their story out of them, or as close to one as she was going to get from their young minds.
Momma gone.
Dad never was.
Shane was a neighbor who helped.
Everyone died. Shane killed a lot of them when they became monsters.
They couldn't play much anymore.
The older boy was seven and Momma left him to babysit his five year old brother.
A lot.
They broke into houses to eat, but always slept in Shane's trailer.
A sad story, but I bet it played out a lot across the country.
He said something I didn't understand, about a Wall, but couldn't explain it. Told us Shane told him.
So we drove.
Bem hummed from the back seat as the younger boy leaned against her, the combination of the drive, the engine and a full bully lulling him to sleep.
“Bill Groggin’s Goat?”
“What’s that?” the Boy asked.
“A song. My Papaw used to sing it to us when we were kids.”
“So it’s ancient.”
“Be nice.”
“Come on Dad,” the Boy grinned. “Did you and Papaw have to saddle up the horses to go look at the railroad when this happened.”
“More like dinosaurs,” Bem chimed in.
“I am Captain Caveman.”
“Who?”
“Dear Lord up in heaven, please grant me the strength,” I prayed and shook my head.
My kids weren’t raised around me as much as I would have liked, so I couldn’t expose them to all the awesomeness that I remember from my childhood. My brother and I would wake up on Saturday mornings and eat cereal in our tighty whities while we watched cartoons for a couple of hours.
Then mom would push us out of the door and lock the screen. We were left up to our own devices until the streetlights came on.
There were ramps, and tree forts and bike roads across the city. I think it said a lot about why I was so independent as an adult, and where I got a real “I’ll figure it out” attitude that made me a decent jack of all trades.
But before the Z I wouldn’t have let my kids roam around.
Too many crazies out there. Kids got picked up off the side of the road when I was young, but the news didn’t broadcast it twenty four seven.
And maybe because I had so many scars from childhood accidents, I didn’t want to put my children through that.
I couldn’t call these kids soft though.
Couldn’t even think it, not after what they had been through, what they had done.
The Boy was a crack shot.
Tyler had been my number one scout for the group.
Bem had outwitted zombies and soldiers and survived lynch mobs and gangs.
Soft kids?
Like hell.
Chips off the old block. Tiny polished diamonds, if you asked me.
Except they were woefully ignorant of car songs.
I blame myself.
When they were coming to visit me in Florida, and we had to drive, I would pick them up at seven or eight o’clock at night. We would drive the two hours to Memphis, grab some food, and they could pass out while I drove through the darkness so they could wake up in Florida, or close enough.
After the sun came up and they were stirring, I was too zonked to think of car songs to sing. The radio sufficed. Hence my brain space dedicated to boy bands.
But no boy band had ever belted out Bill Groggin’s goat with the level of passion I mustered as we drove along.
Not too loud though.
We were still surrounded by Z, even if we couldn’t see them.
The iron wheels screeching on the rail was noisy enough that I imagined a herd of them vectoring our way.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Dad. That is a shit ton of Zombies."
"Language," Bem said before I could.
Hey, it was the end of the world but that didn't mean we couldn't be polite.
He was one hundred percent correct though. There were literally tons of zombies roaming inside the gate at Fort Knox.
The twelve foot perimeter fence was swarming with them, all circling in a mindless shuffle chasing whatever whim the wind carried along that distracted them.
They hadn't noticed us yet.
We came upon the complex but serendipity. On the railroad tracks, we approached the countryside on the outskirts of Louisville and though we couldn't see the city yet, there were signs on the side of the track letting us know to slow down.
Or at least that's what it suggested to trains of old.
As for us, we got wary.
City meant more zombies, and also more bandits, marauders and other survivors who followed cavemen rules of survival.
We happened across a sign that indicated a switch ahead that led to Fort Knox.
"For the gold," the Boy said.
I didn't know, so it sounded like a good working theory.
We stopped to switch the tracks, use the trees for a potty break, then back in to get within a half mile of the fence.
The Army, in its infinite wisdom had cleared a mile's worth of trees between the forest and the base.
This made sense if they were ever to come under attack, though no one pointed out that a speeding train would make the distance in a few seconds, and if it was loaded with TNT or gun toting enemy, the open space would do little to stop them.
I was glad for the trees.
We held back in their shadows, and the zombies inside the fence couldn't see us.
If they did, the mass of them would knock it down as they began to herd after us.
The tiny boy beside Bem whimpere
d.
"We should go hide," his older brother whispered.
It sounded like good advice. Keep moving, go find another base somewhere and get the map we needed.
Us versus a thousand walking dead was not good odds.
"Never tell me the odds," I muttered under my breath.
"What?" the Boy said out of the side of his mouth.
"I said we're going to fight the odds," and motioned them to follow me through the trees.
We worked around the perimeter of the fence line and it all looked whole.
And full of zombies.
Lots of rotting zombies.
Tyler caught a glint of sunlight off metal through the trees and motioned us to stop. We watched him creep forward on the tips of his toes, barely making a sound as he moved, and when he stood up he waved us an all clear.
It was a road, two lane blacktop through a shallow gulch that led up to a guard shack with a closed gate.
Lined with civilian cars.
Several hundred of all makes and models lined both sides of the roads, bumper to bumper, stretching back almost a mile along the roadway.
"Oh, that's why," said the Boy.
He pointed to a sign next to the guard shack.
It was black paint stenciled on plywood, and looked like whoever made it had been in a hurry. Drips of paint dried down the board, looking like a leaking wound.
REFUGEE CENTER
No wonder the Fort was so full.
"Bis was in a place like this?" the Boy breathed out a sigh.
I held mine in.
My little girl had been in something like this, if they made it.
Even now, she might be a Z, one of the walking dead roaming the countryside, gone from me.
Hunting for her was pointless.
The US had a population of four hundred million people and who knows how many were dead, how many were Z and how many were survivors.
Finding her would be impossible, especially if this place was like every other refugee center in America.
"We'll find her," my voice was steady.
I let the rage bubble up a little in my gut, let it fuel the fire and felt it harden my resolve.
We would.
Never tell me the odds.
"I have an idea," Tyler shouldered his rifle.
He looked up one long line of cars and down the other.
"Anyone bring marshmallows?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN