REGGIE: Just shoot the damn things, man!
ME: Get it over with before we actually do panic and say hell with it.
With that, Jim lit a few bottle rockets he placed in a discarded pop bottle we picked up from the side of the road; its label faded white.
They screeched into the air and exploded overhead. Adrenaline kicked in and fear rushed through our veins as Kelly radioed to say they heard the fireworks.
In the distance we heard Dead Calls. So many of them chills went down my spine and for the first time in awhile, Reggie did his shuffle. He looked at me with a panicked expression. I'm sure my face was mirroring his own.
Jim expressed his complaints and fear with multiple expletive outbursts. Not that I blamed him...he was in a far worse position that Reggie and I. He volunteered, however, I'm sure he was regretting that. His bravery went with the wind. I mean no insult by that. Mine was going out the damn window with him...Reggie's I think was gone before the first screech reached it's explosion.
More Dead Calls. Much closer now.
Jim aimed the rockets further down the road now instead of directly overhead. Guess that's something we missed and should have thought of before we started the suicide mission.
In the distance down the road behind us where Jim had begun firing the rockets Bolters began to emerge from the left, pouring out of the woods. At first it looked like maybe ten or so....then they began to pour rapidly out onto the road facing us and jogging in our direction. Roamers were starting to emerge to the sides of us. One at a time they began walking out of the trees and tripping in the ditches.
Jim fired one more rocket in the direction of the Bolters and they began sprinting toward us! It was time to move! Attracting the horde was easier than we anticipated; hopefully that didn't mean the rest of the plan was doomed to trouble.
ME: [into walkie] Here we go!
***
We allowed the horde to gain some ground before we sped up and then accelerated out of their sight. We radioed ahead and they readied themselves. You could hear the nervousness in Kelly's voice over the walkie.
We rushed in the traps direction; reaching the roads end moments later. I looked in the mirror at the same time that Jim yelled we were still out of their sight. I turned left and backed up into a wooded overgrown driveway about fifteen feet from there Kelly and Ben sat huddled down in the SUV.
Minutes seemed like hours. Reggie had beads of sweat running down his forehead. Jim was now inside the cab with us. Reggie between us. Jim was picking at his nails; his gaze locked onto the trap house with an occasional glance at the street.
Some Dead Calls rang out and they were close. They were in range.
The time was now. I nudged Reggie and nodded to him when he looked at me. He grabbed the remote from the dashboard and held it firmly for a moment. He looked at me. He looked at Jim. He looked at the house. Then he push the button.
The siren rang out and was very audible to us. More so than I thought it'd be. In the darkened house we could see the red flashing lights.
The came the Dead Calls and growling and roaring. The sound of rushing feet on asphalt. They rushed past us on the road. A few. A dozen. Then dozens. They rushed at the house and were getting stuck in the door for a moment as they all tried to pile in. After the brief traffic jam they flowed through the doorway like rats.
From where we sat we could hear them trashing everything inside the home as they had our own. Could see them in the second story windows as well. Seconds later, the last few went through the doorway.
Right on que Kelly opened the door of the SUV and stepped out raising the flare gun. Ben stepped from the passenger door to back her up.
Her hands were shaky and we all began to feel nervous. She took a deep breath to steady herself and I wanted at that moment to scream "hurry" and then she fired.
The flare shot through the air and made a direct hit through the window. Although the first shot was a success Ben fired his anyway as to not be left out.
The house lit up inside and coincided with shrieks and screams. I couldn't help the smile that began to appear on my face. A small explosion went off at the side of the house followed by another in the livingroom. More shrieks and screeches. We could see them thrashing around inside totally engulfed in flames.
Another explosion at the back of the house. The tank I set near the back door had gone off. A few minutes later the last one, upstairs, went off. Glass shattered from the upper front windows. A bolter appeared there and tumbled out and down to the ground wrapped in flames. Others started to emerge from the main window and front door; falling onto the sidewalk or wandering into the yard.
We sat there for hours. We watched it all burn. We watched them burn. I personally loved every minute of it. It was retribution. Even if all they were, were motorized instinct, it was still retribution to me.
When it had all lit up and we heard those awful shrieks and seen them burn, I watched in silence. Reggie had cheered (but not too loudly) while punching the palm of his hand. Jim smirked with satisfaction with some nodding of his head.
Looking over I could see Kelly and Ben. She was leaned back in the seat with her eyes closed. She was feeling relief. Ben was leaning foreward with his arms on the dash as if watching a movie at the drive-in.
We watched while the house collapsed. We watched Roamers that had been attracted to the noise walk directly into the flames with no sense of their well being. The sun began to set and we watched the glow of the dying light and embers.
It was over.
***
The sun began to shine hotter as we moved into the next month days later. It was a steady seventy degrees give or take. Soon it would be much hotter. We hoped after a frigid winter we'd have a decent summer.
On this particular day, we were starting to dig an area to grow crops. On this particular day, though, our lives would change.
Reggie was on watch from the rooftop. The rest of us were tending to different tasks down in the yard below. Reggie suddenly shouted down: "Hey, someone's coming!"
As soon as he yelled "Hey" I was about to tell him to keep his voice down...then we all went into full alert and grabbed our firearms and faced the driveway.
From the wooded outskirts at the end of the drive emerged a truck. The same truck we saw on multiple occasions. One man was driving and two stood in the bed brandishing a rifle and the other a shotgun. Neither were pointing at us and one raised his hand in a peaceful gesture. I lowered mine slightly and the other followed my lead, albeit a little nervously.
The truck stopped a few yards away. The driver turned off the ignition and raised his hands in a friendly gesture as well. He opened his door and stepped out. His pistol was holstered on his side. I eased up a little.
Then the driver initiated the conversation:
DRIVER: Hi...sorry if we startled you. My name is Ray. Ray Flynn. These two guys are Travis and Kurt...this place was well hidden! I'm going to assume y'all were the folks holed up at the Roller Hutt?
ME: Yeah...we were...you're from Haven?
Ray: Yes, sir. Sorry we didn't locate you sooner...looks like you managed a good set up though. You're more than welcome to come with us...we don't just let people in of course. We do separate one on one sit downs...get to know folks. We haven't found many. You're the first in several months.
REGGIE: So you guys went to the middle school and found our sign and shit?
RAY: Yep...then tracked you there, and then here. We had no intention of even venturing back out here...but you're definitely people we'd love to talk to and hopefully have with us.
JIM: Why's that?
RAY: I'm sorry...firstly, may I ask whom you all are?
ME: Shit, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to be rude...you caught us off guard. I'm Jack. This is Reggie. That's Jim and his wife, Kelly. Boy is Ben.
RAY: Nice to meet you all. Well, as I was saying...never intended to venture around here anymore. We'd have never found you if we hadn't saw smoke
in the distance. One of our teams were out closer to this area...when they returned they reported what sounded to them like gun fire at a distance. Shortly later, as mentioned, we saw that rising smoke when we drove out this way. We went in that direction first....looked like...a hundred or so scorched bodies in there. Was that your doing?
ME: It was.
RAY:....Were they the quick ferocious fuckers?
ME: They were...some large...horde of them. We'd never seen anything like that. We lost someone because of it. Lost our home, too. Defenses weren't good enough...and who'd have thought Bolters would form a horde...
RAY: Bolters? Good a name as any. Fitting...they destroyed a safe zone. Killed many. Some survivors ended up with us, as I'm sure you've gathered.
REGGIE: Middle school, yeah. It was a scary and sad sight.
ME: We only had guesses...we found out what caused it later when they came out the woodwork and nearly killed us all.
TRAVIS: Guys are lucky you made it...only four survived the school. There were thirty-one of them.
KURT: I drove one of them back awhile later...he wanted to leave that sign to help find others....he was scared out of his mind to go back there...thinking they'd all be there...and scared of seeing friends walking around as those fuckin' things. He insisted he place the sign though. Good man, you'll like him. If you come, that is.
KELLY: We looked all over to find you guys...drove up and down so many back roads...we started to give up and figured the same maybe happened to you as what happened to the school.
RAY: Nah...can't lie though...it's been a concern since we learned about the school. We've been on constant watch. But, it's amazing to know we can chill a little...you guys killed them all....I don't know how! But its a story I damn well wanna hear! You obviously can take care of yourselves and then some. That's why I said we could use people like you...you interested?
BEN: Is there a lot of people?
RAY: Quite a few, yes.
BEN: Any kids like me?
RAY: A few.
JIM: How's your defenses? Not trying to give too many questions-
RAY: Oh, it's fine. We're set up pretty good. We have walls.
KELLY: Walls??
RAY: Mhmm. They keep the slow fuckers out but not those fast sons of bitches. Bolters, as you call'em.
ME: Okay...I think we'd like to see what you got. We'd like that.
KELLY: I really would! I kept hoping there was something out there.
RAY: Well, my friends...there is!
It seemed not real...we'd completely given up hope on these people...maybe not so much Kelly...but the rest of us sure did. And now here they were. We didn't know how strict their rules might be, the kind of guidelines they had to allow residence, but I was sure taking out that Bolter swarm and eliminating a threat gave us some brownie points.
We began to gather some stuff but Ray said we didn't need to bother. He explained that we'd be greeted by someone at a location right outside the community. It's there we'd have our one on one sit downs and be interviewed. From there, we'd be taken back here to wait for them to decide. If they returned, we were in. If not...that was it. Like a damn job interview. It made Kelly upset. The prospect of finally finding them..or rather, being found by them, and no guarantee we'd be staying there.
They said we could bring our weapons. Which was good. Otherwise we'd have just stayed. No one was going to ask us to leave our weapons behind. We didn't fully know what we were walking into.
It was time to find out
***
The drive was much further out than we ever looked. Still, had we traveled this far out it still would have taken forever to locate them, if at all. We never wanted to risk going more than twenty minutes out. Considering the sign was at the school we thought perhaps it was much closer.
The ride took was into a much more secluded country. Trees and fields and specs of empty houses here and there. We were a good thirty...maybe forty minutes out when we came upon a slightly more residential back road.
I leaned forward behind the wheel as we followed the truck. We could see the walls. There was a long line of houses with plenty of open and large yards and fields further behind.
There must have been maybe fifteen houses that lined this side of the road. We passed through an intersection and right next to the walls. The walls were flipped over semi-trailers, the wheels facing into the community. They were neatly lined around the entire stretch of road and turned at the end and led to the back of the homes and stretched back to the other end. It was impressive.
They had to start on this early in the plague. It had to take some time. Next to me, Reggie looked over with a huge shit-eating grin. Ben exclaimed an enormous "whoa!" and leaned up between the seats to get a better look.
Kelly was emotional and overwhelmed. To see a community set up...the best thing we'd seen since it all started...she was mixed with happiness and fear. Happy to know she was right...that a place like this was here. She never gave up hope. Fear of being turned away. She'd be devastated.
In large letters sprayed across the length of two trailers was the word "HAVEN" spelled very clearly and nicely. Stenciled and very welcoming. Halfway down the stretch was an open driveway...only way inside the best I could tell. It was fenced in with a few barricades a few paces back where two armed men stood watch.
We were led further down to where a small storage garage stood on the other side of the road in an open driveway. A man stood there, obviously someone with authority or maybe the actual man in charge. He was maybe in his early forties. Dark hair with some slight graying. Rugged looking type. He had a younger fellow with him; a rifle firmly in his grasp.
The truck pulled in and then off into the yard. We proceeded slowly as we followed them. I kept our distance and told everyone to sit still. I didn't want to make anyone feel threatened or tense. First impression. I thought it wise to wait to be invited to join them.
Ray and the two younger ones got out of the truck. Ray waved us over and we stepped out and approached. The man smiled as I got close and held his hand out. I shook it. He had a firm handshake.
MAN: My name's Alan Flynn.
ME: Jack Reeds. It's a pleasure.
ALAN: Pleasure is all mine, I assure you. My son Ray was speaking to me on the CB on the way here. We've scavenged some useful equipment! He told me you killed that entire small army of running freaks.
ME: Yes, sir. No easy task, I assure you.
ALAN: I want to talk to you first...please, follow me.
The others stayed with Ray and I heard them begin to ask about the walls. Alan led me inside the small garage some yards away. A green shack of a garage with a table inside and some paper and pens.
He sat down on one side and gestured me to the steel chair opposite of himself.
ALAN: Okay, so I gotta ask...how? How'd you pull it off?
ME: They almost killed us...months back. Did kill one of us.
ALAN: I'm sorry to hear that. So it was personal to kill them? Revenge was why you risked your lives?
ME: No. I mean, it factored in of course...it was retribution, yes...but that wasn't the deciding factor to try and kill them.
ALAN: What was?
ME: Just safety. We saw what happened to the school. We didn't know what happened until they found us one night. Destroyed our home and killed one of us. His name was Tim. He was bit...he ran to lead them away so we could escape.
ALAN: So this was a few months back, you said? Still winter.
ME: Yeah. Thought we were gonna fuckin' freeze to death. We ended up...sorry! Excuse my mouth if you don't cu-
ALAN: I don't fuckin' care.
ME: [laughs] alright.
ALAN: [small laugh] Okay...so I got the gist from Ray...you stayed for a few at the skating rink and then found that place where we found you.
ME: Right. We set up better defenses and tried to stay quiet and unnoticed. We wrongly assumed that the horde moved on...was a thousand miles away. Then
one night on watch we spotted the whole lot of the bastards walking down the street. It was time we had to do something. It was only a matter of time before they'd spot us somehow. We built much better defenses but who's to say how well they'd work, ya know? I wasn't down for a durability test.
ALAN: Rightfully so!
ME: Long story short, we found a house...soaked it with gas and other shit, set a remote controlled alarm inside. The explosions your people heard was us shooting off fireworks to lure them out. Once we had them we drove them toward the house, got out of sight and hit the remote alarm to rally them inside.
The Dead Lands Diary (Book 1) Page 23